The generation of the electrical oscillations in a contact of an AFM probe to an individual Au nanoparticle in a SiO2/Si film

摘要

We report on the experimental observation of the electrical oscillations in an oscillating loop connected to a contact of a conductive probe of an atomic force microscope to a tunnel-transparent (≈ 5 nm thick) SiO2/Si(001) film with embedded Au nanoparticles. The oscillations were attributed to the negative differential resistance of the probe-to-sample contact originating from the resonant electron tunnelling between the probe and the Si substrate via the quantum confined electron energy states in small (~1 nm in size) Au nanoparticles. This observation demonstrates the prospects to build an oscillator nanoelectronic device based on an individual nanometer-sized metal nanoparticle.