Hot Carrier extraction with plasmonic broadband absorbers

Hot charge carrier extraction from metallic nanostructures is a very promising approach for applications in photo-catalysis, photovoltaics and photodetection. One limitation is that many metallic nanostructures support a single plasmon resonance thus restricting the light-to-charge-carrier activity to a spectral band. Here we demonstrate that a monolayer of plasmonic nanoparticles can be assembled on a multi-stack layered configuration to achieve broad-band, near-unit light absorption, which is spatially localised on the nanoparticle layer. We show that this enhanced light absorbance leads to $\sim$ 40-fold increases in the photon-to-electron conversion efficiency by the plasmonic nanostructures. We developed a model that successfully captures the essential physics of the plasmonic hot-electron charge generation and separation in these structures. This model also allowed us to establish that efficient hot carrier extraction is limited to spectral regions where the photons possessing energies higher than the Schottky junctions and the localised light absorption of the metal nanoparticles overlap.Comment: submitte

Ultra Flat Gold Surfaces for Use in Chemical Force Microscopy: Scanning Probe Microscopy Studies of the Effect of Preparation Regime on Surface Morphology

The preparation of ultra flat gold surfaces for use in chemical force microscopy (CFM) has been studied. The surfaces were studied in terms of substrate effects by comparing mica, Si (110) wafer and glass slides. The effect of different annealing regimes was also investigated. Measurements on these surfaces were made by both atomic force microscopy (AFM) (in contact and tapping mode) and by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The films contain different morphologies with respect to grain size and topography. Calculations of surface roughness present values less than 2.5 nm for all surfaces studied, making the choice of the flattest surface difficult if based on criteria of surface roughness alone. Additionally, it is shown that different acquisition parameters can produce dissimilar images that have stability and reproducibility.</jats:p