Giant Photogalvanic Effect in Noncentrosymmetric Plasmonic Nanoparticles

Abstract

Photoelectric properties of noncentrosymmetric, similarly oriented metallic nanoparticles embedded in a homogeneous semiconductor matrix are theoretically studied. Because of the asymmetric shape of the nanoparticle boundary, photoelectron emission acquires a preferred direction, resulting in a photocurrent flow in that direction when nanoparticles are uniformly illuminated by a homogeneous plane wave. This effect is a direct analogy of the photogalvanic (or bulk photovoltaic) effect known to exist in media with noncentrosymmetric crystal structure, such as doped lithium niobate or bismuth ferrite, but is several orders of magnitude stronger. Termed the giant plasmonic photogalvanic effect, the reported phenomenon is valuable for characterizing photoemission and photoconductive properties of plasmonic nanostructures and can find many uses for photodetection and photovoltaic applications.

Transition absorption as a mechanism of surface photoelectron emission from metals

“…One can suggest that the inverse process of transition absorption (TA) should also exist, i.e., an electron passing through a boundary between two media with different permittivities should be able to absorb the energy of electromagnetic (EM) field if such field exists at the boundary. TA is particularly interesting in relation to electron photoemission (PE) from metallic nanoparticles or nanoantennas . One of the PE mechanisms (the surface photoelectric effect, SPE) was found to depend both on the potential step and on the dielectric permittivity step at the interface between a metal and another medium (dielectric, semiconductor, or vacuum) .…”

New degrees of freedom in nonlinear metamaterials

“…Metamaterials emerged at the beginning of this century , and have gained their initial popularity by promising a route toward negative refraction, a spectacular phenomenon not available in conventional materials, which offers a way toward super‐resolution in imaging , electromagnetic, acoustic, or thermal cloaking , and many other amazing possibilities .…”

Broadband infrared absorption enhancement by electroless-deposited silver nanoparticles

“…The fields of application include molecular sensing [3][4][5] and tagging [6,7], focusing of light [8,9], near-field optical microscopy [10,11], subwavelength photonics [12,13], structural colors [14,15], and optical metamaterials [16,17]. In particular, the use of plasmons for hot-electron science and photovoltaics is strongly appealing [18][19][20][21][22][23]. Plasmonics is now considered a significant approach to enhancing the lighttrapping properties of thin-film solar cells.…”