Room Temperature Single Electron Charging in Gold Nanoparticle Networks Formed on Biopolymer Templates

We report the current-voltage characteristics of gold nanoparticle – biopolymer networks at room temperature. Above a threshold voltage the current-voltage relationship is almost linear. From the current-voltage scaling above threshold we argue that one-dimensional regions of the network dominate the transport. Periodic features in the conductance are found in many samples. Both the threshold voltage and the conductance features occur at voltages much greater than expected for the capacitance of the nanoparticles. Possible explanations for the structure are considered.