News Source & Photographer: School of Materials Science and Engineering;

Editor: News Agency of BIT

Translator: Wu Shanshan, News Agency of BIT

Recently, Professor Zhang Jiatao and his team at Beijing Institute of Technology have made important progress in the synthesis and interfacial regulation of plasmon-exited electrons photocatalytic materials. Relevant research results entitled “Ultralong Lifetime of Plasmon-Excited Electrons Realized in Nonepitaxial/Epitaxial Au@CdS/CsPbBr₃Triple-Heteronanocrystals” was published in Advanced Materials, a top international journal of materials. Liu Jia, Associate Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering , BIT; Chen Hailong, Researcher, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Zhang Jiatao, Professor, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, BIT are co-corresponding authors. Wan Xiaodong, Pan Yue and Xu Yanjun, PhD students, are co-first authors.

Converting solar energy into chemical fuel (solar fuel) by photocatalysis technology is an important strategic issue, which is expected to reshape the development of global energy and industry. Plasmons on the surface of metal nanoparticles have unique properties of light-matter interaction, which can greatly enhance the solar capture efficiency of semiconductor photocatalytic materials, and has attracted extensive attention in the field of solar fuel synthesis. The bottleneck in this field lies in the femtosecond lifetime of plasmon thermoelectrons, so it is difficult to effectively inject semiconductor materials to drive photocatalytic reactions. How to obtain high-energy electrons with long life is a key scientific problem to improve the utilization efficiency of plasmons-excited electrons in photocatalytic conversion.

Figure 1. Structure and interface characterization of Au@CdS/CsPbBr₃nanocrystals

To solve this problem, based on the previous work, Professor Zhang Jiatao’ s research team , successfully realized atomic-level interface regulation in the nanoscale integration process of metal, sulfide semiconductor and all-inorganic metal halide perovskite through the development of a new synthesis strategy combining epitaxial growth and non-epitaxial growth. Au@CdS/CsPbBr₃nanocrystalline photocatalytic materials with double clean interface of Au-CdS and CdS-CsPbBr₃were prepared. With the help of spectral characterization techniques such as mid-infrared femtosecond pumped transient absorption, the research team conducted in-depth exploration of the dynamic processes of medium ionization carrier excitation, relaxation and interfacial transfer of the ternary nanocrystalline. The results show that Au@CdS/CsPbBr₃ternary nanocrystals can obtain ultra-long isoplason carrier lifetime at nanosecond level, which is three orders of magnitude higher than that of traditional binary nanocrystals, and these high-energy carriers can effectively drive the photocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction reaction. The apparent quantum efficiency of long wavelength visible light region is much higher than that of perovskite-based photocatalytic materials reported in the literature. The above results provide a new synthesis and regulation method for interface engineering of plasmon nanostructured materials, which is conducive to promoting the application of plasmon materials and devices in solar photochemical and photoelectrical conversion fields.

Figure 2. Characterization of plasma carrier lifetime of Au@CdS/CsPbBr₃ternary nanocrystals

Details of the thesis: Xiaodong Wan,1 Yue Pan,1 Yanjun Xu,1 Jia Liu,* Hailong Chen,* Rongrong Pan, Yizhou Zhao, Peiwu Su, Yuemei Li, Xiuming Zhang, Shuping Zhang, Hongbo Li, Dong Su, Yuxiang Weng, Jiatao Zhang*, Ultralong Lifetime of Plasmon‐Excited Electrons Realized in Nonepitaxial/Epitaxial Au@CdS/CsPbBr₃Triple Heteronanocrystals. Advanced Materials, 2022: 2207555.

Paper link:https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202207555

The author’s introduction attached:

Liu Jia, associate professor and doctoral supervisor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, BIT. He graduated from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013, followed by postdoctoral research at National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS) in Japan. He joined School of Materials Science and Engineering, BIT in 2016, mainly engaged in the design and synthesis of solar photochemical conversion catalytic materials. Since his entry, he has published more than 30 papers in Chem. Rev., Adv. Mater, Nano Lett., Nano Energy, Appl. Catal. B and other journals as the first/corresponding author, and presided over two projects of National Natural Science Foundation.

Zhang Jiatao, professor and doctoral supervisor, selected into the National Talent Program, the Dean of School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of BIT, the director of Beijing Key Laboratory of Structurally Controllable Advanced Functional Materials and Green Applications, the first Xu Teli Distinguished Professor of BIT, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. As the project leader/research backbone, he presided over/participated in 7 integrated projects of National Natural Science Foundation major research programs, key projects, excellent youth projects and other projects, and 4 provincial and ministerial projects of the Ministry of Education and Beijing Municipality. As the first or corresponding author, he has published more than 100 papers in Chem. Rev., Nature, Science, Nature Nanotech., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Mater., Energy Environ. Sci., Nano Lett., Adv. Energy Mater., Matter and other international top SCI academic journals , which have been cited more than 8000 times, obtained 7 international and domestic authorized patents, and compiled 8 review/monograph chapters.