[18a-E101-1~12] 12.5 Organic solar cells

[18a-E101-2] Long lifetime hot electrons resonantly excited to quantized electronic states in 10 nm gold nanoparticles

Bochao Li¹, Hao Li¹, Chang Yang¹, Boyu Ji¹, JInqquan Lin¹, 〇Toshihisa Tomie^1,2 (1.CUST, 2.AIST)

Keywords:quantized electronic states, long lifetime hoto electrons, gold nanoparticles

Chemical reaction including charge transfer in solar cells is a process of electron transfer. We are proposing that the most important property of catalysts is a long lifetime of hot electrons. We have shown that smaller diameter gold (Au) nanoparticles (NPs) having a higher catalytic activity have a longer lifetime which was evaluated by transient electron affity¹⁾. We succeeded in observing quantized electronic states in 10 nm Au NPs as reported in the previous talk in this meeting. Quantized states serve as a stage of hot electrons for reducing the activation energy for highly efficient electron transfer. Quantization is also beneficial for elongating lifetime of hot electrons because of reduction of phonon-assisted electron decay due to large energy gaps between discrete levels. This paper reports the observation of lifetime of hot electrons resonantly excited to quantized electronic states in 10 nm diameter Au NPs.