An advanced electroanalytical technique, scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), is used as a new approach to measure both the lateral (in-plane) and cross-film electron transport in multilayer polymer/nanoparticle films. The sensitivity of SECM is such that the conductivity of a single nanoparticle monolayer can be quantified. The increase in SECM tip current with the number of polyelectrolyte/nanoparticle layer pairs demonstrates that the subsequent layers are not electrically insulated from each other and that there is significant communication between nanoparticles in different layers.
