Keys for Designing Hematite/Plasmonic Metal Hybrid Nanostructures with Enhanced Photoactive Properties

ENCINA, E. R.; CORONADO, E. A.

JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Año: 2018 vol. 122 p. 4589 - 4589

1932-7447

hotoactive hybrid nanostructures composed ofmetal oxides and plasmonic metals are able to perform theconversion of radiant (solar) energy into electrical or chemicalenergy. However, their use in large-scale practical applicationsstill requires their photoconversion efficiency to be improved.In this work, the light-harvesting properties of hematite/plasmonic metal rodlike hybrid nanostructures are investigatedon the basis of discrete dipole approximation simulations. Theeffects of the length and nature of the metallic counterpart onthe far- and near-field optical properties of the hybridnanostructure are analyzed in detail. The implementedmethodology allowed us to assess the contribution of eachcomponent of the hybrid nanostructure to the absorptionefficiency, Qabs, separately. In turn, the Qabs values obtained were employed to determine the absorbed photon flux, ϕ, within theα-Fe2O3 component, a relevant quantity directly related to the photoconversion efficiency. It was fou