Metal-nonmetal transition of copper/carbon nanocomposite films and Aging effect

Metal nanoparticles have been the subject of extensive research due to their unique application in many areas [1] and interesting physics involved in the process. The electrical properties of such mixtures are of general interest because of their applications to problems of conductivity and metal-nonmetal transitions in disordered systems. Almost all of the fabrications for metallic nanoparticles are based on wet chemical methods. These methods have restriction for applications in optical and electronic devices [2]. In this work, we prepare copper nanoparticle with different copper content and different particle size by co-deposition of RF-Sputtering and RF-PECVD. Our special deposition conditions including room temperature and non-wet chemical deposition are prerequisites for applications in optical and electronic devices. We reported the deposition process in details previously [3]. we study electrical resistivity of samples versus copper content. The conduction of the samples was explained by tunneling and percolation models. We investigate aging effect for the sample in the threshold of percolation