Abstract

The study of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) on surfaces and their properties has become a common subject for a variety of areas. Notably, to exploit the unique intrinsic features of deposited NPs in macroscopic devices, samples with low coverage are required. The electrical characterization techniques has, however, so far been limited mostly to systems near or beyond the percolation limit, when the nanostructure's resistive behavior is dominant. Here we describe the impedance response of interdigitated electrodes (IDE) during Ag NP deposition, from the very beginning up to the percolation limit. Our experiments present two regimes: up to ∼20% of coverage the capacitance grows linearly with the deposition, increasing abruptly afterward. To understand the experimental data, we propose a model in which the capacitance response is attributed to isolated and agglomerated NPs. Initially, isolated NPs contribute to the ca-

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