Epitaxial growth of highly symmetrical branched noble metal-semiconductor heterostructures with efficient plasmon-induced hot-electron transfer

• Authors: Li Zhai, State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry; Sara T Gebre, Emory University; Bo Chen, City University of Hong Kong; Dan Xu, State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry; Junze Chen, Sichuan University; Zijan Li, City University of Hong Kong; Yawei Liu, Emory University; Hua Yang, City University of Hong Kong; Chongyi Ling, City University of Hong Kong; Yiyao Ge, City University of Hong Kong; Wei Zhai, City University of Hong Kong; Changsheng Chen, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Lu Ma, Brookhaven National Laboratory; Qinghua Zhang, Institute of Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences; Xuefei Li, State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry; Yujie Yan, Nanjing University; Xinyu Huang, Nanjing University; Lujiang Li, City University of Hong Kong; Zhiqiang Guan, City University of Hong Kong; Chen-Lei Tao, State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry; Zhiqi Huang, City University of Hong Kong; Hongyi Wang, City University of Hong Kong; Jinze Liang, City University of Hong Kong; Ye Zhu, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Chun-Sing Lee, City University of Hong Kong; Peng Wang, Nanjing University; Chunfeng Zhang, Nanjing University; Lin Gu, Tsinghua University; Yonghua Du, Brookhaven National Laboratory; Hua Zhang, City University of Hong Kong; Tianquan Lian, Emory University; Xue-Jun Wu, State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry
• Journal Title: Nature Communications
• Volume: Volume 14, Number 1
• Publisher: (publisher) | 2023-12-01, Pages 2538-2538
• Type of Work: Article | Final Publisher PDF
• Publisher DOI: http://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38237-7
• Subjects: Chemistry, General
• Keywords: Epitaxial growth; Ultrafast photonics

Abstract

Epitaxial growth is one of the most commonly used strategies to precisely tailor heterostructures with well-defined compositions, morphologies, crystal phases, and interfaces for various applications. However, as epitaxial growth requires a small interfacial lattice mismatch between the components, it remains a challenge for the epitaxial synthesis of heterostructures constructed by materials with large lattice mismatch and/or different chemical bonding, especially the noble metal-semiconductor heterostructures. Here, we develop a noble metal-seeded epitaxial growth strategy to prepare highly symmetrical noble metal-semiconductor branched heterostructures with desired spatial configurations, i.e., twenty CdS (or CdSe) nanorods epitaxially grown on twenty exposed (111) facets of Ag icosahedral nanocrystal, albeit a large lattice mismatch (more than 40%). Importantly, a high quantum yield (QY) of plasmon-induced hot-electron transferred from Ag to CdS was observed in epitaxial Ag-CdS icosapods (18.1%). This work demonstrates that epitaxial growth can be achieved in heterostructures composed of materials with large lattice mismatches. The constructed epitaxial noble metal-semiconductor interfaces could be an ideal platform for investigating the role of interfaces in various physicochemical processes.