Insights into the nature of plasmon-driven catalytic reactions revealed by HV-TERS

• DOI: 10.1039/c3nr00352c
• Publication Date: 2013-02-26T09:40:45Z
• Authors: Zhenglong Zhang; Li Chen; Mengtao Sun; Panpan Ruan; Hairong Zheng; Hongxing Xu
• Keywords: 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 7. Clean energy

The nature of plasmon-driven chemical reactions is experimentally investigated using high vacuum tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (HV-TERS). It is revealed that the coupling between the tip and the substrate can produce intense plasmon resonance, which then decays to produce sufficient hot electrons and thus catalyses the chemical reaction. The photoelectron emission from the laser illuminated silver substrate alone cannot drive the reaction.