Electrical conductance of silver nanoparticles grown in glass-ceramic

Abstract

Conducting films consisting of silver particles of diameters ranging from 4 to 12 nm have been grown in glass-ceramic by subjecting the latter to a Li⁺ to or from Ag⁺ exchange followed by a suitable reduction treatment. The DC electrical resistance of these films has been measured over the temperature range 80-300 K. The resistivity data have been analysed in terms of the Ziman theory of electron-phonon scattering. The effective Debye temperature θ_p has been estimated by fitting the experimental data to Ziman's equation. θ_p is seen to vary from 98 to 192 K for silver particle sizes ranging from 4.3 to 11.0 nm. The silver particle aggregates in the present system have a fractal microstructure with fractal dimensions of around 1.6 and 1.9, respectively.