A Pd-based plasmonic photocatalyst for nitrogen fixation through an antenna-reactor mechanism.

Plasmonic metal nanocrystals (, Au, Ag, and Cu) hold great promise for driving photocatalytic reactions, but little is known about the plasmonic properties of Pd nanocrystals. Herein, we constructed a plasmonic Pd/Ru antenna-reactor photocatalyst through the controllable growth of a Ru nanoarray 'reactor' on a Pd nano-octahedron 'antenna' and demonstrated a plasmonic Pd-driven N photofixation process. The plasmonic properties of Pd nano-octahedrons were verified using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations and refractive index sensitivity tests in water-glycerol mixtures.