Broadband Coupling of Surface Plasmons in Metal Nanoparticles with Slow Photons in WO3 Inverse Opals as a Novel Photon Management Approach for Solar W

金属纳米粒子中的表面等离子体与 WO3 反蛋白石中的慢光子的宽带耦合作为太阳能 W 的新型光子管理方法

• 批准号: 1857816
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Imperial College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-1857816
• 关键词: Broadband; Coupling; Surface; Plasmons; Metal

The prediction of a 2-fold increase in demand for fossil fuels over the next 35 years in combination with the damaging consequences of their consumption for the environment has forced scientists and engineers to look for more sustainable means of electricity generation. Amongst all the possible sources of renewable energy it is only solar power that has the potential to meet the predicted increases in energy consumption provided that the issue of solar intermittency can be successfully addressed. Therefore effective ways of storing solar energy are required. A promising approach is the synthesis of chemical fuels such as hydrogen using semiconductors in a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell. WO3 is regarded a promising photoanode material performing the water oxidation reaction in a PEC cell. A major limitation of WO3 however, is its ability to only capture a small fraction of the solar spectrum. Amongst a number of different strategies, the decoration of a semiconductor (such as WO3) with metal nanoparticles (MNPs) has been shown to successfully extend the light absorption range of the semiconductor through the excitation of resonant charge oscillations on the MNPs. At the same time, structuring the (host) semiconductor in the form of a photonic crystal (i.e. with a periodically varying refractive index) has been shown to enhance the light absorption in the semiconductor through the slow photon effect. Combining both of these effects (i.e. resonant charge excitations on MNPs and slow photon effect in photonic crystals) in a single structure has been shown to improve synergistically the light absorption capabilities of the semiconductor.

据预测，未来35年，化石燃料的需求将增加两倍，再加上化石燃料的消耗对环境造成的破坏性后果，迫使科学家和工程师寻找更可持续的发电方式。在所有可能的可再生能源中，只有太阳能有潜力满足预测的能源消费增长，前提是太阳能间歇性的问题可以成功解决。因此，需要有效的储存太阳能的方法。一种很有前途的方法是在光电化学（PEC）电池中利用半导体合成化学燃料，如氢。WO3是一种很有前途的光阳极材料，可以在PEC电池中进行水氧化反应。然而，WO3的一个主要限制是它只能捕获太阳光谱的一小部分。在许多不同的策略中，用金属纳米颗粒（MNPs）装饰半导体（如WO3）已被证明可以通过在MNPs上激发共振电荷振荡来成功地延长半导体的光吸收范围。同时，以光子晶体的形式（即具有周期性变化的折射率）构造（宿主）半导体已被证明可以通过慢光子效应增强半导体中的光吸收。将这两种效应（即MNPs上的共振电荷激发和光子晶体中的慢光子效应）结合在一个单一结构中，已被证明可以协同提高半导体的光吸收能力。