Room temperature Coulomb-blockade observation of alkanethiol-encapsulated gold particles using AFM

Abstract

In this study, the observation of self-organized nanostructure and the electrical characterization of alkanethiol-encapsulated gold particles are carried out using atomic force microscope (AFM). The AFM observation of nanostructure of gold dots was performed in the contact mode. The I-V characteristics between AFM tip and HOPG substrate through hexadecanethiol-encapsulated gold particles was measured using a gold-coated tip.