Sponge-shaped Au nanoparticles: a stand-alone metallic photocatalyst for driving the light-induced COreduction reaction.

Coinage metal nanoparticles (NPs) enable plasmonic catalysis by generating hot carriers that drive chemical reactions. Making NPs porous enhances the adsorption of reactant molecules. We present a dewetting and dealloying strategy to fabricate porous gold nanoparticles (Au-Sponge) and compare their COphotoreduction activity with respect to the conventional gold nanoisland (Au-Island) morphology.

Radial Nano-Heterojunctions Consisting of CdS Nanorods Wrapped by 2D CN:PDI Polymer with Deep HOMO for Photo-Oxidative Water Splitting, Dye Degradation and Alcohol Oxidation.

Solar energy harvesting using semiconductor photocatalysis offers an enticing solution to two of the biggest societal challenges, energy scarcity and environmental pollution. After decades of effort, no photocatalyst exists which can simultaneously meet the demand for excellent absorption, high quantum efficiency and photochemical resilience/durability. While CdS is an excellent photocatalyst for hydrogen evolution, pollutant degradation and organic synthesis, photocorrosion of CdS leads to the deactivation of the catalyst.

Harvesting Hot Holes in Plasmon-Coupled Ultrathin Photoanodes for High-Performance Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting.

The harvesting of hot carriers produced by plasmon decay to generate electricity or drive a chemical reaction enables the reduction of the thermalization losses associated with supra-band gap photons in semiconductor photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells. Through the broadband harvesting of light, hot-carrier PEC devices also produce a sensitizing effect in heterojunctions with wide-band gap metal oxide semiconductors possessing good photostability and catalytic activity but poor absorption of visible wavelength photons. There are several reports of hot electrons in Au injected over the Schottky barrier into crystalline TiO and subsequently utilized to drive a chemical reaction but very few reports of hot hole harvesting.

Artificial Neural Network-Based Prediction of the Optical Properties of Spherical Core-Shell Plasmonic Metastructures.

The substitution of time- and labor-intensive empirical research as well as slow finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations with revolutionary techniques such as artificial neural network (ANN)-based predictive modeling is the next trend in the field of nanophotonics. In this work, we demonstrated that neural networks with proper architectures can rapidly predict the far-field optical response of core-shell plasmonic metastructures. The results obtained with artificial neural networks are comparable with FDTD simulations in accuracy but the speed of obtaining them is between 100-1000 times faster than FDTD simulations.

Asymmetric Multipole Plasmon-Mediated Catalysis Shifts the Product Selectivity of CO Photoreduction toward C Products.

Cu/TiO is a well-known photocatalyst for the photocatalytic transformation of CO into methane. The formation of C products such as ethane and ethanol rather than methane is more interesting due to their higher energy density and economic value, but the formation of C-C bonds is currently a major challenge in CO photoreduction. In this context, we report the dominant formation of a C product, namely, ethane, from the gas-phase photoreduction of CO using TiO nanotube arrays (TNTAs) decorated with large-sized (80-200 nm) Ag and Cu nanoparticles without the use of a sacrificial agent or hole scavenger.

Effect of morphology on the photoelectrochemical performance of nanostructured CuO photocathodes.

CuO is a promising earth-abundant semiconductor photocathode for sunlight-driven water splitting. Characterization results are presented to show how the photocurrent density (), onset potential (), band edges, carrier density (), and interfacial charge transfer resistance () are affected by the morphology and method used to deposit CuO on a copper foil. Mesoscopic and planar morphologies exhibit large differences in the values ofand.

Heterojunctions of halogen-doped carbon nitride nanosheets and BiOI for sunlight-driven water-splitting.

A fluorine-doped, chlorine-intercalated carbon nitride (CNF-Cl) photocatalyst has been synthesized for simultaneous improvements in light harvesting capability along with suppression of charge recombination in bulk g-CN. The formation of heterojunctions of these CNF-Cl nanosheets with low bandgap, earth abundant bismuth oxyiodide (BiOI) was achieved, and the synthesized heterojunctions were tested as active photoanodes in photoelectrochemical water splitting experiments. BiOI/CNF-Cl heterojunctions exhibited extended light harvesting with a band-edge of 680 nm and generated photocurrent densities approaching 1.

CN: A Low Bandgap Semiconductor Containing an Azo-Linked Carbon Nitride Framework for Photocatalytic, Photovoltaic and Adsorbent Applications.

Modification of carbon nitride based polymeric 2D materials for tailoring their optical, electronic and chemical properties for various applications has gained significant interest. The present report demonstrates the synthesis of a novel modified carbon nitride framework with a remarkable 3:5 C:N stoichiometry (CN) and an electronic bandgap of 1.76 eV, by thermal deammoniation of the melem hydrazine precursor.

Melanin-based electronics: From proton conductors to photovoltaics and beyond.

The successful interfacing of electronics with biology is the next frontier for microelectronics and nanotechnology. Melanin, a naturally occurring conjugated polymer composed of different structural subunits, may be an ideal candidate for such interfacing. In the solid-state, the large broadband molar attenuation coefficient of melanin over the visible spectrum implicates potential applications as a semiconductor for light harvesting and light detection.