Charge state of a disordered system of metallic nanoparticles

A numerical simulation has been performed for the charge states of structures consisting of metallic nanoparticles arranged in a random order within an layer. The case is considered where external electric fields are absent and charges on particles appear as a result of thermostimulated tunnel transitions of electrons between the particles. For structures with different volume fractions of particles, the average value and the amplitude of fluctuation of the charge density have been obtained at different values of the permittivity and ambient temperature, and temperature dependences of the charged particle fraction have been calculated. It has been shown that the relaxation processes of the charge substantially differ in structures with initially neutral particles and in initially charge-exchanged structures, which brings about a difference of quasi-stationary charge state of the structures.