Synergistic Effect of Plasmonic Gold Nanoparticles Decorated Carbon Nanotubes in Quantum Dots/TiO 2 for Optoelectronic Devices

• Published in: Advanced science Vol. 7; no. 20; p. 2001864
• Main Authors: Selopal, Gurpreet Singh, Mohammadnezhad, Mahyar, Besteiro, Lucas V, Cavuslar, Ozge, Liu, Jiabin, Zhang, Hui, Navarro-Pardo, Fabiola, Liu, Guiju, Wang, Maorong, Durmusoglu, Emek G, Acar, Havva Yagci, Sun, Shuhui, Zhao, Haiguang, Wang, Zhiming M, Rosei, Federico
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.10.2020
• Subjects: Carbon; Efficiency; Electrolytes; Graphene; Nanoparticles; Quantum dots; Semiconductors; Solar energy; Spectrum analysis; photoelectrochemical cells; plasmonic nanoparticles; Au:carbon nanotubes hybrid networks; carbon nanotubes; gold nanoparticles
• ISSN: 2198-3844; 2198-3844
• DOI: 10.1002/advs.202001864

Here, a facile approach to enhance the performance of solar-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is described by means of the synergistic effects of a hybrid network of plasmonic Au nanoparticles (NPs) decorated on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The device based on TiO -Au:CNTs hybrid network sensitized with colloidal CdSe/(CdSe S ) /(CdS) core/alloyed shell quantum dots (QDs) yields a saturated photocurrent density of 16.10 ± 0.10 mA cm [at 1.0 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE)] under 1 sun illumination (AM 1.5G, 100 mW cm ), which is ≈26% higher than the control device. The in-depth mechanism behind this significant improvement is revealed through a combined experimental and theoretical analysis for QDs/TiO -Au:CNTs hybrid network and demonstrates the multifaceted impact of plasmonic Au NPs and CNTs: i) hot-electron injection from Au NPs into CNTs and TiO ; ii) near-field enhancement of the QDs absorption and carrier generation/separation processes by the plasmonic Au NPs; iii) enhanced photoinjected electron transport due to the highly directional pathways offered by CNTs. These results provide fundamental insights on the properties of QDs/TiO -Au:CNTs hybrid network, and highlights the possibility to improve the performance of other solar technologies.