title: "Size-Independent" Single-Electron Tunneling.
abstract: Incorporating single-electron tunneling (SET) of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) into modern electronic devices offers great promise to enable new properties; however, it is technically very challenging due to the necessity to integrate ultrasmall (<10 nm) particles into the devices. The nanosize requirements are intrinsic for NPs to exhibit quantum or SET behaviors, for example, 10 nm or smaller, at room temperature. This work represents the first observation of SET that defies the well-known size restriction. Using polycrystalline Au NPs synthesized via our newly developed solid-state glycine matrices method, a Coulomb Blockade was observed for particles as large as tens of nanometers, and the blockade voltage exhibited little dependence on the size of the NPs. These observations are counterintuitive at first glance. Further investigations reveal that each observed SET arises from the ultrasmall single crystalline grain(s) within the polycrystal NP, which is (are) sufficiently isolated from the nearest neighbor grains. This work demonstrates the concept and feasibility to overcome orthodox spatial confinement requirements to achieve quantum effects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of California , Davis, California 95616, United States.
authors.forename: Jianli
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at Dallas , Richardson, Texas 75080, United States.
authors.forename: Shasha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Biophysics Graduate Group, University of California , Davis, California 95616, United States.
authors.forename: Logan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Swartz
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of California , Davis, California 95616, United States.
authors.forename: Shawn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Riechers
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California , Santa Cruz, California 95064, United States.
authors.forename: Peiguang
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California , Santa Cruz, California 95064, United States.
authors.forename: Shaowei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The University of Texas at Dallas , Richardson, Texas 75080, United States.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of California , Davis, California 95616, United States.|Biophysics Graduate Group, University of California , Davis, California 95616, United States.
authors.forename: Gang-Yu
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D004583:Electrons; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D016252:Microscopy, Scanning Tunneling
keywords: metallic nanoparticle; polycrystalline gold nanoparticles; scanning tunneling microscopy; scanning tunneling spectroscopy; single-electron tunneling