Over the past few years, we have demonstrated plasmon resonant enhancement of several photocatalytic processes (e.g., water splitting1, methyl orange decomposition2, CO oxidation3, and chemical vapor deposition4) by integrating plasmon resonant nanoparticles with strongly photocatalytic semiconductors. When the incident photon energy matches the plasmon resonance of the Au nanoparticles, we observe a significant enhancement in the photocatalytic activity due to the intense local electromagnetic fields created by the surface plasmons of the Au nanoparticles. Here, the Au nanoparticles improve the photocatalytic performance by coupling light very effectively from the far field to the near field, right at the surface of the photocatalyst. We model the plasmon excitation at the Au nanoparticle-photocatalytic semiconductor interface using finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations, which provide a rigorous analysis of the electric fields and charge at the interface. We have also demonstrated plasmonic enhancement of dye sensitized solar cells, which also benefit from the focusing of light to the near field regime at a very thin layer of adsorbed dye molecule.5 While most of our earlier work utilized TiO2 as the photocatalytic semiconductor, we have recently demonstrated plasmon-enhanced water splitting on TiO2-passivated GaP photocatalysts, which makes more efficient use of the solar spectrum than bare TiO2.6 Furthermore, the TiO2 passivation layer makes the actively absorbing GaP photochemically stable and robust to corrosion. 1. Liu, Hou, Pavaskar, Aykol and Cronin, Plasmon Resonant Enhancement of Photocatalytic Water Splitting Under Visible Illumination. Nano Lett., 11, 1111 (2011). 2. Hou, Liu, Pavaskar, Hung and Cronin, Plasmonic Enhancement of Photocatalytic Decomposition of Methyl Orange under Visible Light. J. Catal., 277, 149 (2011). 3. Hung, Aykol, Valley, Hou and Cronin, Plasmon Resonant Enhancement of Carbon Monoxide Catalysis. Nano Letters, 10, 1314 (2010). 4. Hung, Hsu, Bushmaker, Kumar, Theiss and Cronin, Laser Directed Growth of Carbon-Based Nanostructures by Plasmon Resonant Chemical Vapor Deposition. Nano Letters, 8, 3278 (2008). 5. Hou, Pavaskar, Liu, Theiss, Aykol and Cronin, Plasmon resonant enhancement of dye sensitized solar cells. Energy & Environmental Science, 4, 4650 (2011). 6. Qiu, Zeng, Pavaskar, Li and Cronin, Plasmon-Enhanced Water Splitting on TiO2-Passivated GaP Photocatalysts. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 16, 3115 (2014).

Plasmon resonant enhancement of photocatalytic processes

249th National Meeting (2015)

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