title: Comparison of surface plasmon resonance responses to dry/wet air for Ag, Cu, and Au/SiO2.
abstract: We investigated the optical absorption spectra of Ag-, Cu-, and Au-mesoporous SiO(2) systems, respectively, after the samples were heated in dry air and in wet air. As expected, dry air at high temperature leads to the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) disappearance of Ag-SiO(2) and Cu-SiO(2) and a slight SPR increase of Au-SiO(2). However, a small amount of water vapor in air induces a strong SPR appearance for both Ag- and Au-containing samples, indicating that water vapor plays an abnormal reduction effect on both Ag and Au species in mesoporous SiO(2), despite the fact that it usually plays an oxidation role on Pt-group metals, but it cannot induce the SPR appearance for the Cu-containing sample under the same condition.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, and Anhui Key Laboratory of Metal Materials and Processing, Anhui University of Technology, Ma-An-Shan, 243002, Anhui, China.
authors.forename: Jinlian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Peisheng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen