Carrier injection and charge loss characteristics of nonvolatile memories with chemically-synthesized (CS) and vacuum-deposited (VD) gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) have been investigated. Compared to CS counterparts, the memories with VD Au-NPs exhibit a higher dot density of 3.77 x 10(11) cm(-2), leading to a larger memory window. Further, the energy from valence-band edge to vacuum level (E-VB_vac) of tunneling oxide for the samples with CS and VD Au-NPs is found to be 9.04 and 9.85 eV respectively. The small E-VB_vac value of the memories with CS Au-NPs is resulted from the formation of a thin chemical oxide (SiOx) on thermally-grown SiO2 tunneling layer during the chemically synthesized process, contributing to a slow erasing behavior. Besides, the programming of the memories with VD Au-NPs is saturated at high gate bias, which has been well-explained by the electrons induced potential coupling between Au-NPs. Superior data retention property and high temperature dependence of charge loss are observed for the memories with CS Au-NPs, which can be ascribed to the thick tunneling oxide layer by the additional SiOx film. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.