Coupling Solar Energy into Reactions: Materials Design for Surface Plasmon‐Mediated Catalysis

TLDR

Surface plasmon‑enabled noble metal nanostructures harvest light to generate heat, energetic electrons, and strong local fields, providing a novel solar‑to‑chemical pathway distinct from semiconductor photocatalysis. This review aims to clarify how solar energy can be coupled into chemical reactions via plasmonic nanostructures. It explains surface plasmons in metallic nanostructures, how tuning their physical parameters tailors plasmonic features, and outlines design rules for catalytic applications. The article shows that tunable plasmonic metals can initiate and drive nanoscale chemical reactions and identifies challenges and opportunities for advancing plasmonic‑mediated catalysis in energy and environmental contexts.

Abstract

Enabled by surface plasmons, noble metal nanostructures can interact with and harvest incident light. As such, they may serve as unique media to generate heat, supply energetic electrons, and provide strong local electromagnetic fields for chemical reactions through different mechanisms. This solar‐to‐chemical pathway provides a new approach to solar energy utilization, alternative to conventional semiconductor‐based photocatalysis. To provide readers with a clear picture of this newly recognized process, this review presents coupling solar energy into chemical reactions through plasmonic nanostructures. It starts with a brief introduction of surface plasmons in metallic nanostructures, followed by a demonstration of tuning plasmonic features by tailoring their physical parameters. Owing to their tunable plasmonic properties, metallic materials offer a platform to trigger and drive chemical reactions at the nanoscale, as systematically overviewed in this article. The design rules for plasmonic materials for catalytic applications are further outlined based on existing examples. At the end of this article, the challenges and opportunities for further development of plasmonic‐mediated catalysis toward energy and environmental applications are discussed.