Plasmon Coupling-Induced Hot Electrons for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Generation

We present the fabrication of core-shell-satellite Au@SiO2-Pt nanostructures and demonstrate that LSPR excitation of the core Au nanoparticle can induce plasmon coupling effect to initiate photocatalytic hydrogen generation from decomposition of formic acid. Further studies suggest that the plasmon coupling effect induces a strong local electric field between the Au core and Pt nanoparticles on the SiO2 shell, which enables creation of hot electrons on the non-plasmonic-active Pt nanoparticles to participate hydrogen evolution reaction on the Pt surface. In addition, small SiO2 shell thickness is required in order to obtain a strong plamon coupling effect and achieve efficient photocatalytic activities for hydrogen generation.