Photophysical, photochemical and photocatalytic aspects of metal nanoparticles

Unique electronic and chemical properties of metal nanoparticles have drawn the attention of chemists, physicists, biologists, and engineers who wish to use them for the development of new generation nanodevices. Metal nanoparticles such as gold and silver show noticeable photoactivity under UV-visible irradiation as is evident from the photoinduced fusion and fragmentation processes. Binding a photoactive molecule (e.g., pyrene) to metal nanoparticle enhances the photochemical activity and renders the organic-inorganic hybrid nanoassemblies suitable for light-harvesting and optoelectronic applications. The nature of charge-transfer interaction of fluorophore with gold surface dictates the pathways with which the excited-state deactivates. Obtaining insight into energy and electron-transfer processes is important to improve the charge separation efficiencies in metal-fluorophore nanoassemblies and photocatalytic activity of metal-semiconductor composites.