Plasmonic nanoparticle-film-assisted photoelectrochemical catalysis across the entire visible-NIR region

Junchang Zhang; Yinghui Sun; Rui Feng; Wenkai Liang; Zhiqiang Liang; Wei Guo; Ibrahim Abdulhalim; Jiangying Qu; Cheng-Wei Qiu; Lin Jiang

doi:10.1039/C9NR07191A

Plasmonic nanoparticle-film-assisted photoelectrochemical catalysis across the entire visible-NIR region†

Junchang Zhang,‡^ab Yinghui Sun,

‡^c Rui Feng,‡^de Wenkai Liang,^a Zhiqiang Liang,^a Wei Guo,^a Ibrahim Abdulhalim,

^f Jiangying Qu,

^b Cheng-Wei Qiu*^d and Lin Jiang

*^a

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials & Devices, Joint International Research Laboratory of Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices, Suzhou 215123, Jiangsu, China
E-mail: ljiang@suda.edu.cn

^b School of Environment and Civil Engineering, Dongguan University of Technology, Dongguan, Guangdong, China

^c College of Energy, Soochow Institute for Energy and Materials Innovations & Key Laboratory of Advanced Carbon Materials and Wearable Energy Technologies of Jiangsu Province, Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, Jiangsu, China

^d Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117583, Singapore
E-mail: chengwei.qiu@nus.edu.sg

^e Department of physics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

^f Department of Electrooptics and Photonics Engineering and the Ilse-Katz Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel

Abstract

Low solar light absorption and high electron–hole pair recombination are still the main challenges for solar energy conversion. Here, we design a plasmonic nanoparticle (NP)-film with a unique structure combining the advantages of a Au NP and film, which exhibits strong broadband absorption from the visible to near-infrared (NIR) wavelength range. In addition, the high density of sub-1 nm inter-particle gaps in the Au NP-film supports electromagnetic field enhancement of several orders of magnitude that greatly promotes the generation and separation of electron–hole pairs. Accordingly, the plasmonic NP-film-assisted photocatalyst (TiO₂/90Au/TiO₂) leads to an 88-fold increase in the photocurrent density at 0.75 V vs. RHE in 25% methanol solution under visible-NIR light irradiation (λ > 420 nm) compared to a TiO₂ film, which is higher than those of the ever reported Au/TiO₂ photocatalysts in the entire visible-NIR range. Our finding indicates a promising way to explore full solar spectrum photocatalysts, which can be easily extended to other energy conversion applications.

Nanoscale

Plasmonic nanoparticle-film-assisted photoelectrochemical catalysis across the entire visible-NIR region†

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