Hot-Hole versus Hot-Electron Transport at Cu/GaN Heterojunction Interfaces

Tagliabue, Giulia; DuChene, Joseph S.; Habib, Adela; Sundararaman, Ravishankar; Atwater, Harry A.

doi:10.1021/acsnano.0c00713

Hot-Hole versus Hot-Electron Transport at Cu/GaN Heterojunction Interfaces

Journal Article · Tue Apr 14 04:00:00 EDT 2020 · ACS Nano

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.0c00713· OSTI ID:1801633

^[1]; ^[2]; Habib, Adela ^[3]; ^[3]; ^[2]

California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Thomas J. Watson Lab. of Applied Physics. Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis; EPFL, Lausanne (Switzerland). Lab. of Nanoscience for Energy Technologies (LNET); OSTI
California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Thomas J. Watson Lab. of Applied Physics. Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering

Among all plasmonic metals, copper (Cu) has the greatest potential for realizing optoelectronic and photochemical hot-carrier devices, thanks to its CMOS compatibility and outstanding catalytic properties. Yet, relative to gold (Au) or silver (Ag), Cu has rarely been studied and the fundamental properties of its photoexcited hot carriers are not well understood. Here, we demonstrate that Cu nanoantennas on p-type gallium nitride (p-GaN) enable hot-hole-driven photodetection across the visible spectrum. Importantly, we combine experimental measurements of the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) with ab initio theoretical modeling to clarify the competing roles of hot-carrier energy and mean-free path on the performance of hot-hole devices above and below the interband threshold of the metal. We also examine Cu-based plasmonic photodetectors on corresponding n-type GaN substrates that operate via the collection of hot electrons. By comparing hot hole and hot electron photodetectors that employ the same metal/semiconductor interface (Cu/GaN), we further elucidate the relative advantages and limitations of these complementary plasmonic systems. In particular, we find that harnessing hot holes with p-type semiconductors is a promising strategy for plasmon-driven photodetection across the visible and ultraviolet regimes. Given the technological relevance of Cu and the fundamental insights provided by our combined experimental and theoretical approach, we anticipate that our studies will have a broad impact on the design of hot-carrier optoelectronic devices and plasmon-driven photocatalytic systems.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0004993

OSTI ID:: 1801633

Journal Information:: ACS Nano, Journal Name: ACS Nano Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 14; ISSN 1936-0851

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (34)

Plasmonics: Fundamentals and Applications Maier, Stefan A. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-37825-1	book	January 2007
Plasmonics: the next chip-scale technology Zia, Rashid; Schuller, Jon A.; Chandran, Anu Materials Today, Vol. 9, Issue 7-8, p. 20-27 https://doi.org/10.1016/S1369-7021(06)71572-3	journal	July 2006
JDFTx: Software for joint density-functional theory Sundararaman, Ravishankar; Letchworth-Weaver, Kendra; Schwarz, Kathleen A. SoftwareX, Vol. 6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2017.10.006	journal	January 2017
Progress and Perspectives of Electrochemical CO ₂ Reduction on Copper in Aqueous Electrolyte Nitopi, Stephanie; Bertheussen, Erlend; Scott, Soren B. Chemical Reviews, Vol. 119, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.8b00705	journal	April 2019
Hot Hole Collection and Photoelectrochemical CO ₂ Reduction with Plasmonic Au/p-GaN Photocathodes DuChene, Joseph S.; Tagliabue, Giulia; Welch, Alex J. Nano Letters, Vol. 18, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00241	journal	March 2018
Optical Excitation of a Nanoparticle Cu/p-NiO Photocathode Improves Reaction Selectivity for CO ₂ Reduction in Aqueous Electrolytes DuChene, Joseph S.; Tagliabue, Giulia; Welch, Alex J. Nano Letters, Vol. 20, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b04895	journal	March 2020
Electronic Structure of the Plasmons in Metal Nanocrystals: Fundamental Limitations for the Energy Efficiency of Hot Electron Generation Chang, Le; Besteiro, Lucas V.; Sun, Jiachen ACS Energy Letters, Vol. 4, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b01617	journal	September 2019
Single-Particle Emission Spectroscopy Resolves d-Hole Relaxation in Copper Nanocubes Cai, Yi-Yu; Collins, Sean S. E.; Gallagher, Miranda J. ACS Energy Letters, Vol. 4, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b01747	journal	September 2019
Nonradiative Plasmon Decay and Hot Carrier Dynamics: Effects of Phonons, Surfaces, and Geometry Brown, Ana M.; Sundararaman, Ravishankar; Narang, Prineha ACS Nano, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5b06199	journal	December 2015
Photodetection by Hot Electrons or Hot Holes: A Comparable Study on Physics and Performances Sun, Qingxin; Zhang, Cheng; Shao, Weijia ACS Omega, Vol. 4, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.9b00267	journal	March 2019
Ultrafast Plasmon-Induced Electron Transfer from Gold Nanodots into TiO ₂ Nanoparticles Furube, Akihiro; Du, Luchao; Hara, Kohjiro Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 129, Issue 48 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja076134v	journal	December 2007
The Optical Properties of Metal Nanoparticles: The Influence of Size, Shape, and Dielectric Environment Kelly, K. Lance; Coronado, Eduardo; Zhao, Lin Lin The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol. 107, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/jp026731y	journal	January 2003
Plasmonic Properties of Copper Nanoparticles Fabricated by Nanosphere Lithography Chan, George H.; Zhao, Jing; Hicks, Erin M. Nano Letters, Vol. 7, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl070648a	journal	July 2007
Hot-Electron Photodetection with a Plasmonic Nanostripe Antenna Chalabi, Hamidreza; Schoen, David; Brongersma, Mark L. Nano Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl4044373	journal	February 2014
Aluminum for Plasmonics Knight, Mark W.; King, Nicholas S.; Liu, Lifei ACS Nano, Vol. 8, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1021/nn405495q	journal	December 2013
Theoretical predictions for hot-carrier generation from surface plasmon decay Sundararaman, Ravishankar; Narang, Prineha; Jermyn, Adam S. Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6788	journal	December 2014
Distinguishing between plasmon-induced and photoexcited carriers in a device geometry Zheng, Bob Y.; Zhao, Hangqi; Manjavacas, Alejandro Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8797	journal	July 2015
Photocurrent mapping of near-field optical antenna resonances Barnard, Edward S.; Pala, Ragip A.; Brongersma, Mark L. Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 6, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.131	journal	August 2011
Plasmon-induced hot carrier science and technology Brongersma, Mark L.; Halas, Naomi J.; Nordlander, Peter Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.311	journal	January 2015
Quantifying the role of surface plasmon excitation and hot carrier transport in plasmonic devices Tagliabue, Giulia; Jermyn, Adam S.; Sundararaman, Ravishankar Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05968-x	journal	August 2018
Why gold nanoparticles are more precious than pretty gold: Noble metal surface plasmon resonance and its enhancement of the radiative and nonradiative properties of nanocrystals of different shapes Eustis, Susie; El-Sayed, Mostafa A. Chemical Society Reviews, Vol. 35, Issue 3, p. 209-217 https://doi.org/10.1039/B514191E	journal	January 2006
Plasmon-induced charge separation: chemistry and wide applications Tatsuma, Tetsu; Nishi, Hiroyasu; Ishida, Takuya Chemical Science, Vol. 8, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1039/C7SC00031F	journal	January 2017
New insights into the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide on metallic copper surfaces Kuhl, Kendra P.; Cave, Etosha R.; Abram, David N. Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 5, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1039/c2ee21234j	journal	January 2012
Solar energy conversion via hot electron internal photoemission in metallic nanostructures: Efficiency estimates Leenheer, Andrew J.; Narang, Prineha; Lewis, Nathan S. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 115, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4870040	journal	April 2014
Thin Au surface plasmon waveguide Schottky detectors on p-Si Berini, Pierre; Olivieri, Anthony; Chen, Chengkun Nanotechnology, Vol. 23, Issue 44 https://doi.org/10.1088/0957-4484/23/44/444011	journal	October 2012
Hole Decoherence of d Bands in Copper Petek, H.; Nagano, H.; Ogawa, S. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 83, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.832	journal	July 1999
Photodetection with Active Optical Antennas Knight, M. W.; Sobhani, H.; Nordlander, P. Science, Vol. 332, Issue 6030, p. 702-704 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1203056	journal	May 2011
Hot Charge Carrier Transmission from Plasmonic Nanostructures Christopher, Phillip; Moskovits, Martin Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 68, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-physchem-052516-044948	journal	May 2017
Nanoscale Schottky contact surface plasmon “point detectors” for optical beam scanning applications Othman, Naema; Berini, Pierre Applied Optics, Vol. 56, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.56.003329	journal	January 2017
Waveguide based compact silicon Schottky photodetector with enhanced responsivity in the telecom spectral band Goykhman, Ilya; Desiatov, Boris; Khurgin, Jacob Optics Express, Vol. 20, Issue 27 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.20.028594	journal	January 2012
High-responsivity sub-bandgap hot-hole plasmonic Schottky detectors Alavirad, Mohammad; Olivieri, Anthony; Roy, Langis Optics Express, Vol. 24, Issue 20 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.24.022544	journal	January 2016
Ultra-compact silicon waveguide-integrated Schottky photodetectors using perfect absorption from tapered metal nanobrick arrays Kwon, Hyeokbin; You, Jong-Bum; Jin, Yeonghoon Optics Express, Vol. 27, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.016413	journal	January 2019
Plasmonic hot carrier dynamics in solid-state and chemical systems for energy conversion Narang, Prineha; Sundararaman, Ravishankar; Atwater, Harry A. Nanophotonics, Vol. 5, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2016-0007	journal	January 2016
Fabrication of electrically contacted plasmonic Schottky nanoantennas on silicon [Fabrication of electrically contacted plasmonic Schottky nanoantennas on silicon] Mohammad Alavirad, Mohammad Alavirad; Anthony Olivieri, Anthony Olivieri; Langis Roy, Langis Roy Chinese Optics Letters, Vol. 16, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.3788/COL201816.050007	journal	January 2018

Similar Records

Hot Hole Collection and Photoelectrochemical CO₂ Reduction with Plasmonic Au/p-GaN Photocathodes

Journal Article · Thu Mar 08 23:00:00 EST 2018 · Nano Letters · OSTI ID:1469320

Theoretical predictions for hot-carrier generation from surface plasmon decay

Journal Article · Mon Dec 15 23:00:00 EST 2014 · Nature Communications · OSTI ID:1457531

Quantifying the role of surface plasmon excitation and hot carrier transport in plasmonic devices

Journal Article · Thu Aug 23 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Nature Communications · OSTI ID:1464991

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
copper
hot carriers
hot holes
p-type GaN
photodetection
plasmonics

Hot-Hole versus Hot-Electron Transport at Cu/GaN Heterojunction Interfaces

Citation Formats

References (34)

Similar Records

Related Subjects