This paper reports the study of the solvent (tetrachloromethane, toluene, tetrahydrofuran. acetone, N,N-dimethylformamide, acetonitrile, ethanol, ethanol-water mixture (1:1, v:v) and neat dodecanethiol liquid) effect on the quality of self-assembled monolayers of dodecanethiol (C(12)SH-SAMs) on polycrystalline gold. The quality of the C(12)SH-SAMs was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and the results show that highly dense and well-ordered C(12)SH-SAMs can be prepared from ethanol-water mixture and neat dodecanethiol liquid. The property parameters of the solvents, such as polarity, solubility parameter, molecular diameter, octanol-water partition coefficients and viscosity were correlated with their ability to influence the quality of the C(12)SH-SAMs. (c) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.