The Condensed Matter & Surface Sciences Colloquium Series presents Lucas Vazquez Besteiro of Ohio University on “Hot Carrier Generation in Plasmonic Nanoparticles,” on Thursday, September 1, at 4:10 p.m. in Walter 245.
Lucas Vazquez Besteiro
Abstract: Certain materials, such as noble metals, support collective charge carrier oscillations when excited with electromagnetic fields. The quanta of these excitations in the electron density are known as plasmons, and its field of study, plasmonics, has found a variety of actual and potential applications within the broader discipline of nanotechnology. Many of these are related to sensing, imaging and information processing, but others aim to use plasmonics as a means for harvesting energy from light. This can be approached by using nanoparticles as antennas that absorb electromagnetic radiation and can then inject excited carriers into system of interest, be it to produce photocurrents or induce photocatalysis. These processes depend on the plasmon dephasing into a non-thermal charge carrier distribution, where a number of carriers are excited into high energy states (hot electrons or holes) that can transfer their energy outside of the plasmonic nanoparticle. In this talk I will provide an overview of this phenomenon, with specific discussion around some of the theoretical work performed in Prof. Govorov’s group.
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