Electron transport within transparent assemblies of tin-doped indium oxide colloidal nanocrystals

Stripe-like compact assemblies of tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) are fabricated by stop-and-go convective self-assembly (CSA). Systematic evaluation of the electron transport mechanisms in these systems is carried out by varying the length of carboxylate ligands protecting the NCs: butanoate (C4), octanoate (C8) and oleate (C18). The interparticle edge-to-edge distance L0, along with a number of carbon atoms in the alkyl chain of the coating ligand, are deduced from small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements and exhibit a linear relationship with a slope of 0.11 nm per carbon pair unit. Temperature-dependent resistance characteristics are analyzed using several electron transport models: Efros-Shklovskii variable range hopping (ES-VRH), inelastic cotunneling (IC), regular island array and percolation. The analysis indicated that the first two models (ES-VRH and IC) fail to explain the observed behavior, and that only simple activated transport takes place in these systems under the experimental conditions studied (T = 300 K to 77 K). Related transport parameters were then extracted using the regular island array and percolation models. The effective tunneling decay constant βeff of the ligands and the Coulomb charging energy EC are found to be around 5.5 nm(-1) and 25 meV, respectively, irrespective of ligand lengths. The theoretical tunneling decay constant β calculated using the percolation model is in the range 9 nm(-1). Electromechanical tests on the ITO nanoparticle assemblies indicate that their sensitivities are as high as ∼30 and remain the same regardless of ligand lengths, which is in agreement with the constant effective βeff extracted from regular island array and percolation models.