Elucidating the photoluminescence-enhancement mechanism in a push-pull conjugated polymer induced by hot-electron injection from gold nanoparticles

Dongki Lee; Se Gyo Han; Jungho Mun; Kihyuk Yang; Sung Hyuk Kim; Junsuk Rho; Kilwon Cho; Dongyeop X. Oh; Mun Seok Jeong

doi:10.1364/PRJ.409762

[1] L.-Y. Hsu, W. Ding, G. C. Schatz. Plasmon-coupled resonance energy transfer. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 8, 2357-2367(2017).

[2] V. Amendola, R. Pilot, M. Frasconi, O. M. Maragò, M. A. Iatì. Surface plasmon resonance in gold nanoparticles: a review. J. Phys. Condens. Matter, 29, 203002(2017).

[3] S. V. Boriskina, H. Ghasemi, G. Chen. Plasmonic materials for energy: from physics to applications. Mater. Today, 16, 375-386(2013).

[4] J. Z. Zhang, C. Noguez. Plasmonic optical properties and applications of metal nanostructures. Plasmonics, 3, 127-150(2008).

[5] K. G. Thomas, P. V. Kamat. Chromophore-functionalized gold nanoparticles. Acc. Chem. Res., 36, 888-898(2003).

[6] E. T. Vickers, M. Garai, S. Bonabi Naghadeh, S. Lindley, J. Hibbs, Q.-H. Xu, J. Z. Zhang. Two-photon photoluminescence and photothermal properties of hollow gold nanospheres for efficient theranostic applications. J. Phys. Chem. C, 122, 13304-13313(2017).

[7] H. F. Zarick, A. Boulesbaa, E. M. Talbert, A. Puretzky, D. Geohegan, R. Bardhan. Ultrafast excited-state dynamics in shape-and composition-controlled gold-silver bimetallic nanostructures. J. Phys. Chem. C, 121, 4540-4547(2017).

[8] K. G. Stamplecoskie, P. V. Kamat. Synergistic effects in the coupling of plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticles with excited gold clusters. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 6, 1870-1875(2015).

[9] P. Zheng, S. K. Cushing, S. Suri, N. Wu. Tailoring plasmonic properties of gold nanohole arrays for surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 17, 21211-21219(2015).

[10] L. Chang, L. V. Besteiro, J. Sun, E. Y. Santiago, S. K. Gray, Z. Wang, A. O. Govorov. Electronic structure of the plasmons in metal nanocrystals: fundamental limitations for the energy efficiency of hot electron generation. ACS Energy Lett., 4, 2552-2568(2019).

[11] T. Debnath, H. N. Ghosh. Ternary metal chalcogenides: into the exciton and biexciton dynamics. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 10, 6227-6238(2019).

[12] F. Zheng, L.-W. Wang. Ultrafast hot carrier injection in Au/GaN: the role of band bending and the interface band structure. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 10, 6174-6183(2019).

[13] N. Wu. Plasmonic metal-semiconductor photocatalysts and photoelectrochemical cells: a review. Nanoscale, 10, 2679-2696(2018).

[14] M. Valenti, M. Jonsson, G. Biskos, A. Schmidt-Ott, W. Smith. Plasmonic nanoparticle-semiconductor composites for efficient solar water splitting. J. Mater. Chem. A, 4, 17891-17912(2016).

[15] W. R. Erwin, H. F. Zarick, E. M. Talbert, R. Bardhan. Light trapping in mesoporous solar cells with plasmonic nanostructures. Energy Environ. Sci., 9, 1577-1601(2016).

[16] S. K. Cushing, N. Wu. Progress and perspectives of plasmon-enhanced solar energy conversion. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 7, 666-675(2016).

[17] J. Li, J. Z. Zhang. Optical properties and applications of hybrid semiconductor nanomaterials. Coord. Chem. Rev., 253, 3015-3041(2009).

[18] D. Lee, S. H. Kim, S. K. Han, J. Mun, J. Rho, K. Cho, H. Rhee, M. S. Jeong, D. X. Oh. Effect of hot-electron injection on the excited-state dynamics of a hybrid plasmonic system containing poly(3-hexylthiophene)-coated gold nanoparticles. J. Phys. Chem. C, 123, 26564-26570(2019).

[19] Y. Hattori, M. Abdellah, J. Meng, K. Zheng, J. Sá. Simultaneous hot electron and hole injection upon excitation of gold surface plasmon. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 10, 3140-3146(2019).

[20] W. R. Erwin, R. C. MacKenzie, R. Bardhan. Understanding the limits of plasmonic enhancement in organic photovoltaics. J. Phys. Chem. C, 122, 7859-7866(2018).

[21] S. Bang, N. T. Duong, J. Lee, Y. H. Cho, H. M. Oh, H. Kim, S. J. Yun, C. Park, M.-K. Kwon, J.-Y. Kim. Augmented quantum yield of a 2D monolayer photodetector by surface plasmon coupling. Nano Lett., 18, 2316-2323(2018).

[22] A. Sharma, C. Sharma, B. Bhattacharyya, K. Gambhir, M. Kumar, S. Chand, R. Mehrotra, S. Husale. Plasmon induced ultrafast injection of hot electrons in Au nanoislands grown on a CdS film. J. Mater. Chem. C, 5, 618-626(2017).

[23] H. F. Zarick, A. Boulesbaa, A. A. Puretzky, E. M. Talbert, Z. R. DeBra, N. Soetan, D. B. Geohegan, R. Bardhan. Ultrafast carrier dynamics in bimetallic nanostructure-enhanced methylammonium lead bromide perovskites. Nanoscale, 9, 1475-1483(2017).

[24] Y. Cao, T. Xie, R. C. Qian, Y. T. Long. Plasmon resonance energy transfer: coupling between chromophore molecules and metallic nanoparticles. Small, 13, 1601955(2017).

[25] H. F. Zarick, W. R. Erwin, A. Boulesbaa, O. K. Hurd, J. A. Webb, A. A. Puretzky, D. B. Geohegan, R. Bardhan. Improving light harvesting in dye-sensitized solar cells using hybrid bimetallic nanostructures. ACS Photon., 3, 385-394(2016).

[26] S. K. Balakrishnan, P. V. Kamat. Au–CsPbBr₃ hybrid architecture: anchoring gold nanoparticles on cubic perovskite nanocrystals. ACS Energy Lett., 2, 88-93(2017).

[27] J. Li, S. K. Cushing, F. Meng, T. R. Senty, A. D. Bristow, N. Wu. Plasmon-induced resonance energy transfer for solar energy conversion. Nat. Photonics, 9, 601-607(2015).

[28] E. Kymakis, G. D. Spyropoulos, R. Fernandes, G. Kakavelakis, A. G. Kanaras, E. Stratakis. Plasmonic bulk heterojunction solar cells: the role of nanoparticle ligand coating. ACS Photon., 2, 714-723(2015).

[29] S. K. Cushing, A. D. Bristow, N. Wu. Theoretical maximum efficiency of solar energy conversion in plasmonic metal–semiconductor heterojunctions. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 17, 30013-30022(2015).

[30] S. K. Cushing, J. Li, J. Bright, B. T. Yost, P. Zheng, A. D. Bristow, N. Wu. Controlling plasmon-induced resonance energy transfer and hot electron injection processes in Metal@TiO₂ core-shell nanoparticles. J. Phys. Chem. C, 119, 16239-16244(2015).

[31] J. Li, S. K. Cushing, P. Zheng, T. Senty, F. Meng, A. D. Bristow, A. Manivannan, N. Wu. Solar hydrogen generation by a CdS-Au-TiO₂ sandwich nanorod array enhanced with Au nanoparticle as electron relay and plasmonic photosensitizer. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 136, 8438-8449(2014).

[32] S. T. Kochuveedu, D. H. Kim. Surface plasmon resonance mediated photoluminescence properties of nanostructured multicomponent fluorophore systems. Nanoscale, 6, 4966-4984(2014).

[33] D. Zhang, W. C. H. Choy, F. Xie, W. E. I. Sha, X. Li, B. Ding, K. Zhang, F. Huang, Y. Cao. Plasmonic electrically functionalized TiO₂ for high-performance organic solar cells. Adv. Funct. Mater., 23, 4255-4261(2013).

[34] F.-X. Xie, W. C. H. Choy, W. E. I. Sha, D. Zhang, S. Zhang, X. Li, C.-W. Leung, J. Hou. Enhanced charge extraction in organic solar cells through electron accumulation effects induced by metal nanoparticles. Energy Environ. Sci., 6, 3372-3379(2013).

[35] S. K. Cushing, J. Li, F. Meng, T. R. Senty, S. Suri, M. Zhi, M. Li, A. D. Bristow, N. Wu. Photocatalytic activity enhanced by plasmonic resonant energy transfer from metal to semiconductor. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 134, 15033-15041(2012).

[36] M. D. Brown, T. Suteewong, R. S. S. Kumar, V. D’Innocenzo, A. Petrozza, M. M. Lee, U. Wiesner, H. J. Snaith. Plasmonic dye-sensitized solar cells using core–shell metal–insulator nanoparticles. Nano Lett., 11, 438-445(2011).

[37] T. Hirakawa, P. V. Kamat. Charge separation and catalytic activity of Ag@TiO₂ core–shell composite clusters under UV–irradiation. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 127, 3928-3934(2005).

[38] D. Lee, D.-J. Jang. Charge-carrier relaxation dynamics of poly(3-hexylthiophene)-coated gold hybrid nanoparticles. Polymer, 55, 5469-5476(2014).

[39] K. Topp, H. Borchert, F. Johnen, A. V. Tunc, M. Knipper, E. Von Hauff, J. Parisi, K. Al-Shamery. Impact of the incorporation of Au nanoparticles into polymer/fullerene solar cells. J. Phys. Chem. A, 114, 3981-3989(2010).

[40] D. H. Park, M. S. Kim, J. Joo. Hybrid nanostructures using π-conjugated polymers and nanoscale metals: synthesis, characteristics, and optoelectronic applications. Chem. Soc. Rev., 39, 2439-2452(2010).

[41] D. Lee, D. H. Sin, S. W. Kim, H. Lee, H. R. Byun, J. Mun, W. Sung, B. Kang, D. G. Kim, H. Ko. Singlet exciton delocalization in gold nanoparticle-tethered poly(3-hexylthiophene) nanofibers with enhanced intrachain ordering. Macromolecules, 50, 8487-8496(2017).

[42] D. Lee, J. Lee, K.-H. Song, H. Rhee, D.-J. Jang. Formation and decay of charge carriers in aggregate nanofibers consisting of poly(3-hexylthiophene)-coated gold nanoparticles. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 18, 2087-2096(2016).

[43] Y.-B. Lee, S. Park, S. Lee, J. Kim, K.-S. Lee, J. Joo. Nanoscale luminescence characteristics of CdSe/ZnS quantum dots hybridized with organic and metal nanowires: energy transfer effects. J. Mater. Chem. C, 1, 2145-2151(2013).

[44] G. Wang, M. A. Adil, J. Zhang, Z. Wei. Large-area organic solar cells: material requirements, modular designs, and printing methods. Adv. Mater., 31, 1805089(2019).

[45] B. Kan, Y. Q. Q. Yi, X. Wan, H. Feng, X. Ke, Y. Wang, C. Li, Y. Chen. Ternary organic solar cells with 12.8% efficiency using two nonfullerene acceptors with complementary absorptions. Adv. Energy Mater., 8, 1800424(2018).

[46] S. Li, L. Ye, W. Zhao, S. Zhang, S. Mukherjee, H. Ade, J. Hou. Energy-level modulation of small-molecule electron acceptors to achieve over 12% efficiency in polymer solar cells. Adv. Mater., 28, 9423-9429(2016).

[47] K. Yao, L. Chen, Y. Chen, F. Li, P. Wang. Influence of water-soluble polythiophene as an interfacial layer on the P3HT/PCBM bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaics. J. Mater. Chem., 21, 13780-13784(2011).

[48] M. D. Irwin, D. B. Buchholz, A. W. Hains, R. P. Chang, T. J. Marks. p-Type semiconducting nickel oxide as an efficiency-enhancing anode interfacial layer in polymer bulk-heterojunction solar cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105, 2783-2787(2008).

[49] P. Bharadwaj, L. Novotny. Spectral dependence of single molecule fluorescence enhancement. Opt. Express, 15, 14266-14274(2007).

[50] G. Han, Y. Guo, X. Ma, Y. Yi. Atomistic insight into donor/acceptor interfaces in high-efficiency nonfullerene organic solar cells. Solar RRL, 2, 1800190(2018).

[51] D. R. Lide. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics(2004).

[52] H. Fan, T. Vergote, S. Xu, S. Chen, C. Yang, X. Zhu. A thieno[3, 4-b] thiophene linker enables a low-bandgap fluorene-cored molecular acceptor for efficient non-fullerene solar cells. Mater. Chem. Front., 2, 760-767(2018).

[53] W. R. Hollingsworth, J. Lee, L. Fang, A. L. Ayzner. Exciton relaxation in highly rigid conjugated polymers: correlating radiative dynamics with structural heterogeneity and wavefunction delocalization. ACS Energy Lett., 2, 2096-2102(2017).

[54] W. R. Hollingsworth, C. Segura, J. Balderrama, N. Lopez, P. Schleissner, A. L. Ayzner. Exciton transfer and emergent excitonic states in oppositely-charged conjugated polyelectrolyte complexes. J. Phys. Chem. B, 120, 7767-7774(2016).

[55] F. Bencheikh, D. Duché, C. M. Ruiz, J.-J. Simon, L. Escoubas. Study of optical properties and molecular aggregation of conjugated low band gap copolymers: PTB7 and PTB7-Th. J. Phys. Chem. C, 119, 24643-24648(2015).

[56] X. Li, W. C. H. Choy, L. Huo, F. Xie, W. E. I. Sha, B. Ding, X. Guo, Y. Li, J. Hou, J. You, Y. Yang. Dual plasmonic nanostructures for high performance inverted organic solar cells. Adv. Mater., 24, 3046-3052(2012).

[57] C. C. D. Wang, W. C. H. Choy, C. Duan, D. D. S. Fung, W. E. I. Sha, F.-X. Xie, F. Huang, Y. Cao. Optical and electrical effects of gold nanoparticles in the active layer of polymer solar cells. J. Mater. Chem., 22, 1206-1211(2012).

[58] F.-X. Xie, W. C. H. Choy, C. C. D. Wang, W. E. I. Sha, D. D. S. Fung. Improving the efficiency of polymer solar cells by incorporating gold nanoparticles into all polymer layers. Appl. Phys. Lett., 99, 153304(2011).

[59] H. Ohkita, S. Cook, Y. Astuti, W. Duffy, S. Tierney, W. Zhang, M. Heeney, I. McCulloch, J. Nelson, D. D. Bradley. Charge carrier formation in polythiophene/fullerene blend films studied by transient absorption spectroscopy. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 130, 3030-3042(2008).

[60] T. R. Hopper, D. Qian, L. Yang, X. Wang, K. Zhou, R. Kumar, W. Ma, C. He, J. Hou, F. Gao. Control of donor–acceptor photophysics through structural modification of a ‘twisting’ push–pull molecule. Chem. Mater., 31, 6860-6869(2019).

[61] O. P. Dimitriev, D. A. Blank, C. Ganser, C. Teichert. Effect of the polymer chain arrangement on exciton and polaron dynamics in P3HT and P3HT:PCBM films. J. Phys. Chem. C, 122, 17096-17109(2018).

[62] T. Unger, F. Panzer, C. Consani, F. Koch, T. Brixner, H. Bässler, A. Köhler. Ultrafast energy transfer between disordered and highly planarized chains of poly[2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (MEH-PPV). ACS Macro Lett., 4, 412-416(2015).

[63] P. Roy, A. Jha, V. B. Yasarapudi, T. Ram, B. Puttaraju, S. Patil, J. Dasgupta. Ultrafast bridge planarization in donor-π-acceptor copolymers drives intramolecular charge transfer. Nat. Commun., 8, 1716(2017).

[64] B. Jana, S. Bhattacharyya, A. Patra. Conjugated polymer P3HT-Au hybrid nanostructures for enhancing photocatalytic activity. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 17, 15392-15399(2015).

[65] H.-H. Fang, S. Adjokatse, S. Shao, J. Even, M. A. Loi. Long-lived hot-carrier light emission and large blue shift in formamidinium tin triiodide perovskites. Nat. Commun., 9, 243(2018).

[66] J. Guo, H. Ohkita, H. Benten, S. Ito. Near-IR femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy of ultrafast polaron and triplet exciton formation in polythiophene films with different regioregularities. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 131, 16869-16880(2009).