The corrosion behaviour on gold surface in air-exposed solution induced by alkanethiol molecules such as n-dodecanethiol in self-assembled process has been for the first time investigated in detail by in situ quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). The gold lost from the in situ QCM has been well explained by the observation of atomic force microscopy (AFM), which shows the evident image of corrosive defects or holes produced on the corresponding surface of gold grains. Both alkanethiol assembled monolayer and existing oxygen would be decisive factors for the gold corrosive dissolution on the subst...
