Computational design of bimetallic core-shell nanoparticles for hot-carrier photocatalysis
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Published version
Author(s)
Ranno, Luigi
Dal Forno, Stefano
Lischner, JC
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Computational design can accelerate the discovery of new materials with tailored properties, but applying this approach to plasmonic nanoparticles with diameters larger than a few nanometers is challenging as atomistic first-principles calculations are not feasible for such systems. In this paper, we employ a recently developed material-specific approach that combines effective mass theory for electrons with a quasistatic description of the localized surface plasmon to identify promising bimetallic core-shell nanoparticles for hot-electron photocatalysis. Specifically, we calculate hot-carrier generation rates of 100 different core-shell nanoparticles and find that systems with an alkali-metal core and a transition-metal shell exhibit high figures of merit for water splitting and are stable in aqueous environments. Our analysis reveals that the high efficiency of these systems is related to their electronic structure, which features a two-dimensional electron gas in the shell. Our calculations further demonstrate that hot-carrier properties are highly tunable and depend sensitively on core and shell sizes. The design rules resulting from our work can guide experimental progress towards improved solar energy conversion devices.
Date Issued
2018-07-06
Date Acceptance
2018-06-18
Citation
npj Computational Materials, 2018, 4
ISSN
2057-3960
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
npj Computational Materials
Volume
4
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2018. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party
material in this article are included in the article
’
s Creative Commons license, unless
indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the
article
’
s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory
regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/
Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party
material in this article are included in the article
’
s Creative Commons license, unless
indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the
article
’
s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory
regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Grant Number
EP/N005244/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Technology
Chemistry, Physical
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Chemistry
Materials Science
SURFACE-PLASMON-RESONANCE
METALLIC NANOPARTICLES
ENERGY-CONVERSION
FERMI-LEVEL
PHOTOELECTRODES
POTENTIALS
GENERATION
ELECTRONS
SIZE
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 31