Abstract
Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) offers a valuable opportunity to improve the efficiency of photocatalysts. However, plasmonic enhancement of photoconversion is still limited, as most of metal-semiconductor building blocks depend on LSPR contribution of isolated metal nanoparticles. In this contribution, the concept of collective excitation of embedded metal nanoparticles is demonstrated as an effective strategy to enhance the utilization of plasmonic energy. The contribution of Au-nanochain to the enhancement of photoconversion is 3.5 times increase in comparison with that of conventional isolated Au nanoparticles. Experimental characterization and theoretical simulation show that strongly coupled plasmonic nanostructure of Au-nanochain give rise to highly intensive electromagnetic field. The enhanced strength of electromagnetic field essentially boosts the formation rate of electron-hole pair in semiconductor, and ultimately improves photocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity of semiconductor photocatalysts. The concept of embedded coupled-metal nanostructure represents a promising strategy for the rational design of high-performance photocatalysts.
Highlights
Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) offers a valuable opportunity to improve the efficiency of photocatalysts
The enhanced photoreactivity is attributed to the localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) of plasmonic metal, in which confined free electrons oscillate with the same frequency as the incident radiation, giving rise to intense, highly localized electromagnetic fields[12,13,14,15,16]
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image shows the spatial arrangement of Au nanoparticles in Au-chain@Zn0.67Cd0.33S (Fig. 1b)
Summary
Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) offers a valuable opportunity to improve the efficiency of photocatalysts. Some physical research show that strongly coupled metallic nanostructures would generate much higher electromagnetic fields at the adjacent spot, what kind of architectures would be effective for the semiconductor photocatalyst systems is still unknown[32,33,34] It should be simultaneously considered the spatial arrangement of semiconductor and plasmonic metals. A systematic investigation is carried out to clarify the dependence of the photocatalytic performance on the spatial arrangement of plasmonic metal in the metal–semiconductor building blocks Both the theoretical simulation and experimental characterization shows that Au-nanochain could give rise to much higher local electromagnetic field than that of isolated Au nanoparticles when excited by the incident light. The concept of embedding coupled-metal nanostructure in semiconductors represents an efficient way to enhance the solar energy conversion efficiency
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