Investigation of Plasmonic-Enhanced Solar Photothermal Effect of Au NR@PVDF Micro-/Nanofilms

Shenyi Ding; Jixiang Zhang; Cui Liu; Nian Li; Shudong Zhang; Zhenyang Wang; Min Xi

doi:10.1021/acsomega.2c01146

Investigation of Plasmonic-Enhanced Solar Photothermal Effect of Au NR@PVDF Micro-/Nanofilms

ACS Omega. 2022 Jun 7;7(24):20750-20760. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.2c01146. eCollection 2022 Jun 21.

Authors

Shenyi Ding^{1

2}, Jixiang Zhang^{1

2}, Cui Liu², Nian Li², Shudong Zhang², Zhenyang Wang², Min Xi^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechatronics & Vehicle Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing 400074, P. R. China.
² Institute of Solid State Physics and Key Laboratory of Photovoltaic and Energy Conservation Materials, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui 230031, P. R. China.
³ The Key Laboratory Functional Molecular Solids Ministry of Education, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, Anhui 241002, P. R. China.

Abstract

Gold nanospheres (Au NSs) and gold nanorods (Au NRs) are traditional noble metal plasmonic nanomaterials. Particularly, Au NRs with tunable longitudinal plasmon resonance from the visible to the near-infrared (NIR) range were suitable for highly efficient photothermal applications due to the extended light-receiving range. In this work, we synthesized Au NRs and Au NSs of similar volumes and subsequently developed them into Au NR/poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and Au NS/PVDF nanofilms, both of which exhibited excellent solar photothermal performance evaluated by solar photothermal experiments. We found that the Au NR/PVDF nanofilm showed a higher solar photothermal performance than the Au NS/PVDF nanofilm. Through detailed analysis, such as morphological characterization, optical measurement, and finite element method (FEM) modeling, we found that the plasmonic coupling effects inside the aggregated Au NR nanoclusters contributed to the spectral blue shifts and intensified the photothermal performance. As compared to Au NS/PVDF nanofilms, the Au NR/PVDF nanofilm exhibited a higher efficient light-to-heat conversion rate because of the extended light-receiving range and high absorbance, as a result of the strong plasmonic interactions inside nanoclusters, which was further validated by monochromatic laser photothermal experiments and FEM simulations. Our work proved that the Au NRs have huge potential for plasmonic solar photothermal applications and are envisioned for novel plasmonic applications.