Figure 1

(a) Photographs and schematic diagrams of the three samples, from left to right, the TiO2-Au bilayer, the TiO2-AuNP hybrid and the bare TiO2 film, each sample has the footprint of 1 cm × 1 cm; (b) the absorption spectra and (c) I-t plots of the TiO2-Au bilayer (red solid lines), the TiO2-AuNP hybrid (blue dashed lines) and the bare TiO2 film (black dotted lines), respectively. The TiO2 films of the three samples are all 30 nm thick. The bias potential for the I-t measurement is 0 V vs SCE (i.e., saturated calomel electrode).