Plasmon-enhanced light–matter interactions and applications

• Published in: npj computational materials Vol. 5; no. 1
• Main Authors: Yu, Huakang, Peng, Yusi, Yang, Yong, Li, Zhi-Yuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11.04.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/624/400/1021; 639/766/1130; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Computational Intelligence; Computer applications; Electric fields; Energy conversion; Fluorescence; Heat generation; Materials Science; Mathematical and Computational Engineering; Mathematical and Computational Physics; Mathematical Modeling and Industrial Mathematics; Metals; Morphology; Organic chemistry; Oscillations; Photoacoustic effect; Plasmons; Raman spectra; Review Article; Solar energy conversion; Theoretical; Two dimensional materials
• ISSN: 2057-3960; 2057-3960
• DOI: 10.1038/s41524-019-0184-1

Surface plasmons are coherent and collective electron oscillations confined at the dielectric–metal interface. Benefitting from the inherent subwavelength nature of spatial profile, surface plasmons can greatly accumulate the optical field and energy on the nanoscale and dramatically enhance various light–matter interactions. The properties of surface plasmons are strongly related to materials and structures, so that metals, semiconductors and two-dimensional materials with various morphologies and structures can have alternating plasmonic wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet, visible, near infrared to far infrared. Because the electric field can be enhanced by orders of magnitude within plasmonic structures, various light–matter interaction processes including fluorescence, Raman scattering, heat generation, photoacoustic effects, photocatalysis, nonlinear optical conversion, and solar energy conversion, can be significantly enhanced and these have been confirmed by both theoretical, computational and experimental studies. In this review, we present a concise introduction and discussion of various plasmon-enhanced light–matter interaction processes. We discuss the physical and chemical principles, influencing factors, computational and theoretical methods, and practical applications of these plasmon-enhanced processes and phenomena, with a hope to deliver guidelines for constructing future high-performance plasmonic devices and technologies.