Fig. 4: Mechanistic study of hot-electron transfer.
From: Infrared driven hot electron generation and transfer from non-noble metal plasmonic nanocrystals
a RhB ground state bleach (GSB) signal (red symbols) as a function of pump fluence or averaged photon number per NC (<N>) and the linear fit (black line). Also shown in gray dashed line is modeled hot-electron transfer behavior with thermalized electron distribution, showing superliner behavior. b PIHET quantum yield (QY) as a function of pump photon energy. The red triangles are experimental results. The blue dashed line is modeled results with different barrier height Eb and transfer efficiency η of 5.5%. The gray dashed line shows the direct transfer behavior, contradicting with experimental results. c Scheme of hot-electron transfer with two pump energies (0.75 and 0.85 eV) after Landau damping before electron thermalization. The gray region shows the undisturbed filled states in conduction band. The orange and blue regions represent the excited electrons and empty states left, respectively, after Landau damping under different pump photon energies. Higher pump energy leads to more electrons above barrier height.
