Self assembled gold nanoparticles wires by discontinuous vertical colloidal deposition

Materials at the nanoscale have recently attracted much attention due to their high potential for technological applications and to their size-dependent optical, nonlinear optical, electronic and chemical properties as well as their potential for incorporation into electronic circuits at the nanoscale. In particular, metal nanoparticles have been widely applied due to their ease of synthesis, stability and potential for application ranging from magnetic memory to electronics and to catalysis. In this work we report a simple one step method for assembling spherical nanoparticles into wires without need for lithographic templating. It is effective for a variety of conducting and no conducting nanoparticles and substrates and the only material requirement is that the nanoparticles be placed in a colloidal suspension that is wettable on the desired substrate. The shape of the meniscus defines the wirepsilas geometry. We report the synthesis and physical properties of gold nanoparticles wires of several millimetres long and by a few micrometers wide. As we demonstrate here, the technique is fast and easily controlled and can be used to make integrated nanoparticles wire arrays.