Quantised charging of monolayer-protected nanoparticles

Metal nanoparticles coated with an organic monolayer, so-called monolayer protected clusters (MPCs), can show quantised charging at room temperature due to their sub-attofarad capacitance arising from the core size and the nature of the protecting monolayer. In this tutorial review, we examine the f...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Laaksonen, Timo; Ruiz Fernández, Virginia; Liljeroth, Peter; Quinn, Bernadette M.
Format: Article
Status:Accepted version
Publication date:2008
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Burgos (UBU)
Repository:Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Burgos (RIUBU)
OAI Identifier:oai:riubu.ubu.es:10259/10302
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10259/10302
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Nanotecnología
Electroquímica
Nanotechnology
Electrochemistry
Description
Summary:Metal nanoparticles coated with an organic monolayer, so-called monolayer protected clusters (MPCs), can show quantised charging at room temperature due to their sub-attofarad capacitance arising from the core size and the nature of the protecting monolayer. In this tutorial review, we examine the factors affecting the energetics of MPC charging. In the first section, the underlying physics of quantised charging is outlined and we give an overview of the various methods that can be used to measure single electron transfer to nanoparticles. In the subsequent sections, we discuss how electrochemical measurements can be used to give information on the quantised charging of freely diffusing and films of immobilised MPCs. The predictions of models used to determine MPC capacitance are compared with experimental data from the literature.