Electrical transport properties of peptide nanotubes coated with gold nanoparticles via peptide-induced biomineralization

摘要

We present temperature dependent electrical transport measurements of peptide nanotube devices coated with monodisperse arrays of gold nanoparticles (AuNP). As the temperature is lowered, the current-voltage (I -V) characteristics become increasingly nonlinear and below 20 K conduction only occurs above a threshold voltage VT. The current follows the scaling behavior I α [(V - VT)/VT]α for V > VT with a ? 2.5 signifying two-dimensional (2D) charge transport. The temperature dependence of the resistance shows thermally activated behavior with an activation energy of 18.2 meV corresponding to the sequential tunneling of charges through 6 nm monodispersed AuNP arrays grown on a peptide surface.