Authors: Peng Yang †, Imad Arfaoui †, Tristan Cren ‡, Nicolas Goubet †, and Marie-Paule Pileni *†

University/Institute: ^† Laboratoire des Matériaux Mésoscopiques et Nanométriques (LM2N), UMR CNRS 7070, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), bât F, BP 52, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France

Abstracts:We investigated the electronic properties of highly ordered three-dimensional colloidal crystals of gold nanocrystals (7 ± 0.4 nm), called supracrystals. Two kinds of Au supracrystals with typical thicknesses of 300 nm and 5 μm, respectively, are probed for the first time with scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy at 5 K revealing similar power law behavior and showing homogeneous conductance with the fingerprint of isolated nanocrystal. Potential applications evading the size-related risks of nanocrystals could be then considered.

Links to the paper (link to the journal webpage):http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl3001925