Sustainable Energy Technologies Seminar

The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), arising due to the collective oscillation of free electrons in metal nanoparticles, is a sensitive probe of the nanostructure and its surrounding dielectric medium. Synthetic strategies for developing surfactant free nanoparticles providing direct access to the metallic surface that harvest the localized surface plasmons will be discussed first followed by the applications. It is well known that the hot carriers generated as a result of plasmonic excitation can participate and catalyze chemical reactions. One such reaction is the dissociation of hydrogen. By the virtue of plasmonic excitation, an inert metal like Au can become reactive enough to support the dissociation of hydrogen at room temperature, thereby making it possible to optically detect this explosive gas.1 The mechanism of sensing is still not well understood. However, a potential hypothesis is that the dissociation of hydrogen may lead to the formation of a metastable gold hydride with optical properties distinct from the initial Au nanostructures, causing a reversible increase in transmission and blue shift in LSPR. It will also be shown that by tracking the LSPR of bare Au nanoparticles grown on a substrate, the adsorption of halide ions on Au can be detected exclusively. The shift in LSPR frequency is attributed to changes in electron density rather than the morphology of the nanostructures, which is often the case.