Speaker
Description
Light–matter interactions constitute a promising route to tackle current energy challenges and reduce carbon footprint. For example, plasmonic materials, such as gold, copper, or aluminium, exhibit strong absorption in visible spectrum, offering an exquisite opportunity to utilize the sunlight in photocatalysis. [Linic et al., Nat. mater. 14 (2015)] It was shown that in closely packed bimetallic “antenna–reactor” configurations, they funnel incoming light into narrow regions near the reactor, which results in increased activity of the catalyst. [Herran et al., Nat. catal. 6 (2023)]
Using an exact, yet efficient mode-hybridization approach, we are able to go beyond the assumption of perfect surfaces and instead describe large disordered structures of (bi)metallic superlattices. This allows us to compare our predictions directly to experimental field maps obtained from Raman scattering (SERS). In particular, we study the effects of edges, terraces, or vacancies. Moreover, we investigate various configurations of bimetallic structures to maximize electric field enhancement, thereby achieving optimal catalytic efficiency. Our approach demonstrates that theory can pave the way towards better devices and sustainable chemical synthesis.