Dominance of Plasmonic Resonant Energy Transfer over Direct Electron Transfer in Substantially Enhanced Water Oxidation Activity of BiVO4 by Shape-Controlled Au Nanoparticles

Mi Gyoung Lee; Cheon Woo Moon; Hoonkee Park; Woonbae Sohn; Sung Bum Kang; Sanghan Lee; Kyoung Jin Choi; Ho Won Jang

doi:10.1002/smll.201701644

Dominance of Plasmonic Resonant Energy Transfer over Direct Electron Transfer in Substantially Enhanced Water Oxidation Activity of BiVO₄ by Shape-Controlled Au Nanoparticles

Small. 2017 Oct;13(37). doi: 10.1002/smll.201701644. Epub 2017 Aug 21.

Authors

Mi Gyoung Lee¹, Cheon Woo Moon¹, Hoonkee Park¹, Woonbae Sohn¹, Sung Bum Kang², Sanghan Lee³, Kyoung Jin Choi², Ho Won Jang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Research Institute of Advanced Materials, Seoul National University, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, 44919, Republic of Korea.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Gwangju, 61005, Republic of Korea.

PMID: 28834195
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201701644

Abstract

The performance of plasmonic Au nanostructure/metal oxide heterointerface shows great promise in enhancing photoactivity, due to its ability to confine light to the small volume inside the semiconductor and modify the interfacial electronic band structure. While the shape control of Au nanoparticles (NPs) is crucial for moderate bandgap semiconductors, because plasmonic resonance by interband excitations overlaps above the absorption edge of semiconductors, its critical role in water splitting is still not fully understood. Here, first, the plasmonic effects of shape-controlled Au NPs on bismuth vanadate (BiVO₄ ) are studied, and a largely enhanced photoactivity of BiVO₄ is reported by introducing the octahedral Au NPs. The octahedral Au NP/BiVO₄ achieves 2.4 mA cm^-2 at the 1.23 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode, which is the threefold enhancement compared to BiVO₄ . It is the highest value among the previously reported plasmonic Au NPs/BiVO₄ . Improved photoactivity is attributed to the localized surface plasmon resonance; direct electron transfer (DET), plasmonic resonant energy transfer (PRET). The PRET can be stressed over DET when considering the moderate bandgap semiconductor. Enhanced water oxidation induced by the shape-controlled Au NPs is applicable to moderate semiconductors, and shows a systematic study to explore new efficient plasmonic solar water splitting cells.

Keywords: localized surface plasmon resonance; octahedral; oxygen evolution catalyst; plasmonic resonant energy transfer; shape-controlled gold nanoparticles.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't