Temporal dynamics of site percolation in nanoparticle assemblies

Dynamics of the formation of self-assembled sub-monolayer networks of colloidal nanoparticles is studied in the two-dimensional lattice gas model by Monte Carlo simulation. The site-percolation threshold ( p) is studied for various temperatures and chemical potentials. Our numerical results show that p is greatly reduced due to the evaporation-driving self-organization. The results are qualitatively consistent with our experimental observation.