Gold nanoparticles benefit from large extinction coefficients in the visible range. The conversion of the absorbed energy, however, poses significant challenges since the lifetime of excited carriers in metal nanoparticles is very short. This work explores the possibility of transferring the energy of Au nanoparticles to CdSe semiconductor nanocrystals through the generation of excitons. To this end, ligand-stripped Au and CdSe nanocrystals have been encapsulated into CdS matrices for steady-state and time resolved optical studies. By monitoring the emission of CdSe nanocrystals as a function of the excitation wavelength, we demonstrate a considerable enhancement of the CdSe fluorescence intensity when the excitation photon energy approaches plasmon resonance of a neighboring Au nanoparticle. The dissipation of the transferred energy is then blocked though the use of insulating host matrices. It is expected that the reported mechanism of the plasmon-to-exciton energy conversion can find potential applications in solar photocatalysis.

Semiconductor-metal nanocrystal films for light-emitting applications

248th National Meeting (2014)

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