from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Plasmonic nanoantennas represent advanced structures that allow sub-diffraction manipulation with light energy and its simultaneous focus below the diffraction limit. Gigantic focusing of light energy in the desired targeted place allows for the realization of several phenomena, such as plasmon-induced charge energy transfer of excitation/injection of so-called hot electrons. In turn, such phenomena have found a range of applications in the fields of medicine, sensorics, photovoltaics, and chemical transformations triggering. The main obstacle to greater use of plasmon-based nanoantennas is their complex preparation route and the resulting lack of ‘scalability’ of the structure. In this work, we propose a simple and effective method for the preparation of plasmonic nanoantennas, in which the metal-insulator-metal (MIM) system is used. In particular, a gold grating/polystyrene/platinum heterolayer structure was created. In our design, the gold grating ensures the excitation of the surface plasmon, the polystyrene acts as a dielectric spacer between metals, and the platinum layer is responsible for the catalytic function. The created structure was subsequently used for the water splitting half reaction (hydrogen evolution - HER), which was performed in the photoelectrochemical regime. The structure was also optimized from the theoretical and experimental points of view to reach the maximum efficiency in terms of hydrogen production. After optimization of the structure parameters, we observed a doubled increase in HER efficiency under illumination with light, which corresponded to the maximum of plasmon resonance absorption bands. The proposed nanoantenna design is favoured by the simplicity of preparation and the target area of use - the production of green hydrogen with the utilization of light (potentially, sunlight) energy.
Keywords: Nanoantennas, MIM, HER, plasmon catalysis© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.