Plasmonic Silver Nanoparticles Facilitate Electron Emission from Diamond upon Sun‐Like Excitation
Abstract The development of a stable, non‐toxic material that emits electrons following absorption of visible light may have a major impact on the solar photocatalysis of difficult reactions such as CO 2 and N 2 reduction, as well as for targeted chemical transformations in general. Diamond is a good candidate, however it is a wide bandgap material requiring deep UV photons ( <227 nm) to promote electrons from the valence band into the conduction band. Embedding silver nanoparticles under the diamond surface allows the photoconductivity of the diamond in the spectral region of the surface plasmon resonance to be increased, while also leading to an enhancement of visible light photoemission. Considering the low intensity of the light sources used in this work and the spectral properties of the enhanced photoconductivity and photoemission a mechanism based on plasmonically enhanced photoconductivity which in turn allows surface states emptied by photoemission to be recharged thus leading to enhanced photoemission in the visible range is proposed.
Authors
- Patrick O’Keeffe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8676-4436)
- Alessandra Paladini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2059-1552)
- Daniele Catone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7649-2756)
- Veronica Valentini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2081-1164)
- Matteo Mastellone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4291-6477)
- D.M. Trucchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8278-4707)
- Stefano Turchini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0122-0614)
- Riccardo Polini
- Raffaella Salerno
- Giuseppe Ammirati (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4185-6222)
- A. Santagata (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1409-3135)
- Maria Lucia Pace (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8554-9948)
- F. Martelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4496-4165)
- Francesco Toschi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7215-4805)
- Alessandro Bellucci
Institutions
- University of Rome Tor Vergata (IT)
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (US)
- Institute of Structure of Matter (IT)
- Bologna Research Area (IT)
- Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- ChemPhotoChem
- Published
- 2024-10-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/cptc.202400202
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Laser-Ablation Synthesis of Nanoparticles
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.55
Funders
- European Commission
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
- Regione Basilicata
- European Regional Development Fund