Hot carriers from intra- and interband transitions in gold-silver alloy nanoparticles

Hot electrons and holes generated from the decay of localised surface plasmons in metallic nanoparticles can be harnessed for applications in solar energy conversion and sensing. In this paper, we study the generation of hot carriers in large spherical gold-silver alloy nanoparticles using a recently developed atomistic modelling approach that combines a solution of Maxwell's equations with large-scale tight-binding simulations. We find that hot-carrier properties depend sensitively on the alloy composition. Specifically, nanoparticles with a large gold fraction produce hot carriers under visible light illumination while nanoparticles with a large silver fraction require higher photon energies to produce hot carriers. Moreover, most hot carriers in nanoparticles with a large gold fraction originate from interband transitions which give rise to energetic holes and 'cold' electrons near the Fermi level. Increasing the silver fraction enhances the generation rate of hot carriers from intraband transitions which produce energetic electrons and 'cold' holes. These findings demonstrate that alloy composition is a powerful tuning parameter for the design of nanoparticles for applications in solar energy conversion and sensing that require precise control of hot-carrier properties. To accelerate the design of plasmonic alloy nanoparticles for application in solar energy conversion devices, a detailed understanding of their electronic structure is required. Here, the authors use an atomistic modelling approach that combines a solution of Maxwell's equations with large-scale tight-binding simulations to study the generation of hot carriers in large spherical gold-silver alloy nanoparticles.