Publication date: 21st July 2025
Plasmon-enhanced hot carrier generation in noble metal nanostructures holds promise to boost the efficiency of energy-conversion technologies, primarily in photovoltaics and photocatalysis. However, its fundamental mechanism remains elusive due to the ultrashort dynamics of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) processes.
In this work, we demonstrate that pump-probe femtosecond time-resolved X-ray absorption spectroscopy (TR-XAS), which has recently become available at X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs), can be successfully utilized to quantitatively follow LSPR-induced hot carrier generation in low-concentration gold nanoparticle suspensions. The methodology was validated through comparative analysis with synchrotron data, yielding excellent agreement (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.993) between the collected XFEL- and synchrotron-based Au L3-edge absorption spectra. Building on the above, we establish a framework for quantifying hot carrier populations produced in gold nanoparticles upon optical excitation down to 0.07 per atom, based on the collected statistically significant TR-XAS signals. Developed approach, due to its high sensitivity and element-specificity, opens new avenues for rational design of plasmonic-based energy harvesting systems.
We acknowledge the Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland, for providing beamtime at the Alvra beamline of the SwissFEL facility. We also acknowledge SOLARIS National Synchrotron Radiation Centre, Krakow, Poland, for access to the ASTRA beamline. This project was financed by the National Science Centre (Poland) under grant number 2020/37/B/ST3/00555. Research at the National Synchrotron Radiation Centre SOLARIS is supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland, under contract no. 1/SOL/2021/2.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.