title: Complete Au@ZnO core-shell nanoparticles with enhanced plasmonic absorption enabling significantly improved photocatalysis.
abstract: Nanostructured ZnO exhibits high chemical stability and unique optical properties, representing a promising candidate among photocatalysts in the field of environmental remediation and solar energy conversion. However, ZnO only absorbs the UV light, which accounts for less than 5% of total solar irradiation, significantly limiting its applications. In this article, we report a facile and efficient approach to overcome the poor wettability between ZnO and Au by carefully modulating the surface charge density on Au nanoparticles (NPs), enabling rapid synthesis of Au@ZnO core-shell NPs at room temperature. The resulting Au@ZnO core-shell NPs exhibit a significantly enhanced plasmonic absorption in the visible range due to the Au NP cores. They also show a significantly improved photocatalytic performance in comparison with their single-component counterparts, i.e., the Au NPs and ZnO NPs. Moreover, the high catalytic activity of the as-synthesized Au@ZnO core-shell NPs can be maintained even after many cycles of photocatalytic reaction. Our results shed light on the fact that the Au@ZnO core-shell NPs represent a promising class of candidates for applications in plasmonics, surface-enhanced spectroscopy, light harvest devices, solar energy conversion, and degradation of organic pollutants.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, Shandong, P. R. China. chm_licc@ujn.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yiqiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122, USA. ygsun@temple.edu.
authors.forename: Yugang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, Shandong, P. R. China. chm_licc@ujn.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, Shandong, P. R. China. chm_licc@ujn.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Guozhu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, Shandong, P. R. China. chm_licc@ujn.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Fengshou
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Material Physics, Anhui Key Lab of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, Anhui, P. R. China. yueli@issp.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Dilong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Material Physics, Anhui Key Lab of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, Anhui, P. R. China. yueli@issp.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Weiping
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Material Physics, Anhui Key Lab of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, Anhui, P. R. China. yueli@issp.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Analytical and Testing Center, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xianfeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, Shandong, P. R. China. chm_licc@ujn.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Cuncheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li