Abstract
We investigated the electrochemical potential arrangement of Au nanoclusters, 1–3 nm in diameter, weakly coupled with bulk Au surface through tunneling junctions. The measurement of the Coulomb staircase by scanning tunneling spectroscopy and the statistical analysis for clusters reveal that [μ(0)+μ(1)]/2, where μ(n) is the electrochemical potential of the cluster when the number of excess electrons changes between n−1 and n, distributes around the Fermi level of the bulk Au electrode with the standard deviation σ of 30–70 meV. The spacing ΔE of the equally spaced electrochemical potentials decreases with increasing cluster size, which leads to the breakdown of the charge neutrality of the clusters below ΔE∼0.3 eV due to the competition between σ and ΔE.
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