How to Control AFM Nanoxerography for the Templated Monolayered Assembly of 2 nm Colloidal Gold Nanoparticles

This paper reports on the directed monolayered assembly of 2 nm colloidal gold nanoparticles onto charge patterns written by atomic force microscopy (AFM) on poly(methylmethacrylate) thin films with a sub-100-nm spatial resolution. The impact of key experimental parameters (surface potential of charge patterns, immersion time in the colloidal solution, nanoparticle concentration, rinsing time) on the nanoparticle assembly was quantified for the first time. This study reveals that the high level of control of this so-called AFM nanoxerography process will allow one to construct promising colloid-based devices integrating localized nanoparticle monolayers of desired density.