title: Investigating the size effect of Au nanospheres on the photocatalytic activity of Au-modified ZnO nanorods.
abstract: Plasmonic nanostructures of semiconductors and noble metal nanospheres (NSs) hold great promise in the applications of solar energy conversion. Although it is known that the size of NSs plays a critical role in determining the photocatalytic performance of the resultant nanohybrids, the actual effects depend on multiple variables and needs to be elucidated for each specific scenario. Herein, ZnO nanorods (NRs) modified with AuNSs of diameters varying from 20 to 80nm have been prepared to investigate the size effect of AuNSs on the photocatalytic activity of Au-ZnO hybrids. Interestingly, the Au-ZnONRs with 40-nm AuNSs demonstrate higher photocatalytic activity than the nanohybrids with AuNSs of either smaller or larger sizes. A possible "trade-off" mechanism between efficient charge transfer for smaller NSs and stronger LSPR effect for larger ones is proposed.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province 130022, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: She
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province 130022, China.
authors.forename: Kongliang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province 130022, China.
authors.forename: Shan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province 130022, China.
authors.forename: Qinrong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province 130022, China. Electronic address: sunhang@jlu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province 130022, China. Electronic address: liu_zhenning@jlu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zhenning
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
keywords: Gold nanospheres; Nanohybrids; Photocatalysis; Size effect; Zinc oxide (ZnO)