Scanning tunnelling microscopy as a local probe of hot-carrier generation

在讨论等离子体光催化和其他过程时，了解金属纳米结构表面等离子体衰变产生的热载子是非常重要的。扫描隧道显微镜（STM）是一种潜在的强大工具，可以绘制这些表面上这种衰变的强度，因为它的作用机制是非常局部的，可以实时受到局部状态密度的影响——本身受局部热载子产生的影响。这项研究的直接目标是成功地演示这种成像方法，并验证排除其他影响，如热效应，然后分析金纳米棒和使用它的任何其他适当的超材料。所讨论的超材料是由激光照射激发的（等离子体），这是STM装置的一部分。

An understanding of hot-carriers generated by the decay of plasmons on the surface of metallic nanostructures is of great importance when discussing plasmonic photocatalysis and other processes. Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) is a potentially powerful tool for mapping the intensity of this decay across these surfaces, as its mechanism of action is extremely local and can be influenced by the local density of states - itself influenced by local hot-carrier generation - in real time. The immediate goal of this research is to successfully demonstrate this imaging method and to verify that other influences, such as thermal effects, are ruled out, and then to analyse gold nanorods and any other appropriate meta-materials using it.The metamaterials in question are excited (plasmonically speaking) by laser illumination, which forms part of the STM setup.