Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) exhibit highly efficient interaction with light across visible and near IR spectral range due to the excitation of plasmon resonances, which are the collective oscillations of the free electrons. The efficiency of this interaction surpasses any known organic or inorganic molecular chromophore interaction with light. AgNPs with a diameter of 100 nm – 150 nm range exhibit plasmon resonance coincides with the solar spectrum. It has been demonstrated that the resulted extinction spectra of these AgNPs consist of low absorbance and high scattering components. The absorbance can be increased at the expense of decreasing the light scattering by chemically transforming AgNPs into hybrid Ag/Ag2S nanostructures. Further studies hypothesized that the absorbed light energy is trapped in the Ag2S layer of the hybrid nanostructures. Ag2S is a semiconductor, and when it is in electrical contact with another metal, it can potentially form a Schottky barrier which can harvest the trapped light energy to produce the photogenerated electron-hole pairs. Such a device works as a light-harvesting antenna, and this novel concept is employed in this research, and several approaches were taken to achieve this goal.

Development of Ag/Ag2S nanoparticle-based photosensitive and light-harvesting devices

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.