Plasmon-Enhanced Solar-Driven Hydrogen Evolution Using Plasmonic Metasurface Broadband Absorbers

Tzu-Yu Peng^1,2*, Meng-Ju Yu¹, Chih-Li Chang^1,4, Hao-Yu Lan¹, Zong-Yi Chiao^1,3, Yu-Chia Chen¹, Ho Wai Howard Lee⁵, Yia-Chung Chang¹, Shu-Wei Chang¹, Takuo Tanaka^6,7,8, Vincent Tung⁹, Ho-Hsiu Chou⁴, Yu-Jung Lu^1,3

¹Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
²Graduate Institute of Applied Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
³Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
⁴Department of Chemical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
⁵Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California, CA, USA
⁶Metamaterials Laboratory, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research, Saitama, Japan
⁷Innovative Photon Manipulation Research Team, RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics, Saitama, Japan
⁸Institute of Post-LED Photonics, Tokushima University, Tokushima, Japan
⁹Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

* Presenter:Tzu-Yu Peng, email:pupss932841@gmail.com

Broadband perfect absorbers in the visible region have attracted considerable attention in many fields, especially in solar thermophotovoltaic and energy harvesting systems. However, developing light absorbers with high absorptivity, thermal stability, and a broad bandwidth remains a great challenge. Here, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that transition metal nitride metasurface absorber exhibits broadband absorption with an average absorption of more than 92% over a wavelength range of 400 to 750 nm. The increase in absorption is attributed to the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). We report the plasmon-enhanced visible-light-driven hydrogen production from water using a polymer photocatalyst integrated with a TiN metasurface absorber. A 300% increase in the hydrogen evolution rate was observed due to the LSPR that enhances the rates of light absorption, carrier separation, and hot-carrier transfer in polymer photocatalyst. The concept is extensible to other types of photocatalyst such as perovskites and 2D materials. We will also discuss the outlook for plasmonic metasurface in applications of solar energy harvesting systems.

Keywords: Plasmonic, Metasurface, Hydrogen Evolution, Perfect absorber