Oral Presentation Royal Australian Chemical Institute National Congress 2026

Harmonizing plasmonic and photonic effects to boost photocatalytic H2 production (137361)

Tharishinny Raja Mogan 1 , Jiajia Zhang 1 , Li Shiuan Ng 1 , Siew Kheng Boong 1 , Carice Chong 1 , Jinn-Kye Lee 1 , Haitao Li 2 , Hiang Kwee Lee 1 3
  1. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, SINGAPORE
  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering , Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China
  3. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A∗STAR), Innovis, Singapore

The integration of plasmonic nanostructures with photonic crystals offers a powerful strategy to enhance light-matter interactions for solar-driven hydrogen generation.1,2 However, most plasmonic–photonic systems rely on semiconductor backbones that introduce competing optical absorption and carrier processes, which limit electromagnetic field confinement and photocatalytic efficiency.3,4 Here, we report a harmonized plasmonic–photonic architecture that overcomes these limitations by employing a chemically and optically inert SiO2 opal as a non-photoabsorbing photonic framework. Precise spectral alignment between plasmonic excitation and slow-photon modes enables efficient light confinement and amplified local electromagnetic fields. As a result, the optimized plasmonic photonic crystal achieves a hydrogen evolution rate of 560 mmol h-1gAg-1, exceeding that of bare Ag nanoparticles by more than 106-fold and outperforming state-of-the-art photocatalytic systems by up to 280-fold. Mechanistic studies highlight the pivotal role of the non-photoabsorbing photonic backbone in facilitating effective light confinement through the photonic effect. This in turn boosts the plasmonic field for enhanced photocatalytic H2 evolution, even without needing additional co-catalysts. These findings establish a general design principle for electromagnetically hot plasmonic catalysts and open new avenues for light-to-chemical energy conversion across energy and environmental applications.

  1. [1] L. Zhang, C- Y. Lin, V. K. Valev, E. Reisner, U. Steiner, J. J. Baumberg, Small 10, 3970–3978, (2014) [2] T. Raja Mogan, E. Kowalska, B. Ohtani, Catalysts 10, 1–20, (2020). [3] G. Tagliabue, A. S. Jermyn, R. Sundararaman, A.-J. Welch, J. S. DuChene, R. Pala, A. R. Davoyan, P. Narang, H. A. Atwater, Nat. Commun., 9, 1–8, (2018). [4] L. Wang, M. H. Kafshgari, M. Meunier, Adv. Funct. Mater., 30, 2005400, (2020).