Metallic Plasmonic Nanostructure Arrays for Enhanced Solar Photocatalysis

Abstract

Plasmon-enhanced photocatalysis has emerged as a promising technology for solar-to-chemical energy conversion. Compared to isolated or disordered metal nanostructures, by controlling the morphology, composition, size, spacing, and dispersion of individual nanocomponents, plasmonic nanostructure arrays with coupling architectures yield strong broadband light-harvesting capability, efficient charge transfer, enhanced local electromagnetic fields, and large contact interfaces. Although metallic nanostructure arrays are extensively studied for various applications, such as refractive index sensing, surface-enhanced spectroscopy, plasmon-enhanced luminescence, plasmon nanolasing, and perfect light absorption, the connection between surface plasmon resonance and enhanced photocatalysis remains relatively unexplored. In this study, an overview of plasmonic nanostructure arrays over a broad range, from 0D to 3D, for efficient photocatalysis is presented. By reviewing the fundamental mechanisms, recent applications, and latest developments of plasmonic nanostructure arrays in solar-driven chemical conversion, this study reports on the latest guidance toward the integration of plasmonic nanostructures for functional devices in the fields of plasmonic, photonics, photodetection, and solar-energy harvesting.

Optical Binding of Metal Nanoparticles Self‐Reinforced by Plasmonic Surface Lattice Resonances

“…Moreover, PSLRs in discrete NP patterns can be used for many applications, such as lasing, [ 15 ] biosensing, [ 16 ] and photocatalysis. [ 17 ] However, traditional NP arrays are fabricated on substrates, while optical matter assembled by light has unique features: it is free‐standing, reconfigurable, and naturally supports coupled photonic‐plasmonic resonances. Optically bound metal NP arrays with PSLRs may thus be used to enhance fluorescence and Raman scattering and to study nonlinear properties, such as terahertz and second‐harmonic generation, leading to the development of new photonic nanodevices.…”

Plasmonics: A Versatile Toolbox for Heterogeneous Photocatalysis

“…In the near‐field case, the excitation of the acceptor species by a plasmonic NP can be explained in terms of a nonradiative near‐field effect due to the large increase of the local intensity of the electric field near the surface of metal NPs. [ 54 ] Some authors explain this event as a nonradiative dipole–dipole energy transfer between a metal and acceptor that results in the direct excitation of an electron–hole pair in the latter. Such mechanism, called plasmon‐induced resonant energy transfer (PIRET), [ 55 ] takes place only when a spectral overlap exists between the LSPR of the metal and the absorption band of the acceptor.…”

Plasmon-induced hot carrier dynamics and utilization

“…The strategies to enhance hot carrier generation, carrier injection, separation, and transportation are discussed in detail. Although efficient utilization of plasmon-induced hot carriers is still challenging, their applications in photocatalysis, photovoltaics, photodetectors, and ultrafast optical modulations are emerging and highly demanded [196,[282][283][284][285] . Thus far, numerous efforts have been devoted to the hot carrier utilization in semiconductors.…”

“…The efficient light harvesting, hot carrier generation, and local electromagnetic-field enhancement of SPs can greatly enhance photocatalytic performance. The plasmonic photocatalysts can be categorized into noble and non-noble plasmonic metal NPs [144,196,286,287] , metallic plasmonic nanostructure arrays [282] and plasmonic metals/semiconductor heterostructures [21,288,289] , which have been applied in various areas, such as water splitting [290,291] , CO2 reduction [283,292] , normalN2 fixation [293,294] , and pollutant degradation [295,296] . Interested readers are suggested to read these reviews and references therein to gain insight into the challenges, including the usage of non-noble plasmonic metals to reduce the cost, understanding of photocatalytic mechanisms at the atomic and molecular level, enhancement of carrier separation and extraction and utilization of photothermal effects.…”