Ring stain effect at room temperature in silver nanoparticles yields high electrical conductivity

We demonstrate that metallic rings formed spontaneously at room temperature via evaporation of aqueous drops containing silver nanoparticles (20-30 nm in diameter) exhibit high electrical conductivity (up to 15% of that for bulk silver). The mechanism underlying this self-assembly phenomena is the "ring stain effect", where self-pinning is combined with capillary flow to form a ring consisting of close-packed metallic nanoparticles along the perimeter of a drying droplet. Our macroscopic and microscopic (applying conductive atomic force microscopy) transport measurements show that the conductivity of the ring, which has a metallic brightness, is orders of magnitude larger than that of corresponding aggregates developed without the ring formation, where high conductivity is known to appear only after annealing at high temperature.