The Effects of Gold Nanoparticles Deposition on the Surface of TiO2 Nanorods for Solar Water Splitting Applications

Plasmonic gold nanostructures offer a promising route to improving the solar energy conversion efficiency of semiconductors. This paper reports that the presence of gold nanoparticles (NPs) on the surface of TiO2 nanorods leads to an enhanced photocurrent for the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting performance and discusses the origins of this enhancement from the results of various characterization techniques. The results show that plasmon-induced resonant energy transfer is responsible for the light harvesting enhancement at the energies below the band edge of TiO2. These results may provide a general approach to overcoming the low optical absorption of semiconductor structures, while further reducing the charge recombination losses.