Monitoring Transport Behavior of Charge Carriers in a Single CdS@CuS Nanowire via In Situ Single-Particle Photoluminescence Spectroscopy

Examination of the spectral and kinetic characteristics of charge carrier recombination on nanostructured semiconductors by photoluminescence (PL) plays a significant role in understanding the photocatalytic process. Here, with an in situ single-particle PL technique, we studied the transport behavior of charge carriers in individual one-dimensional (1D) core-shell structures of CdS@CuS nanowires. Through the PL intensity changes in the single-particle PL spectroscopy, effective interfacial electron transport along the interface of CdS and CuS was observed, which contributes to the significant improvement (i.e., 13.5-fold increase) of photocatalytic H-2 production compared to that for pure CdS nanowires. The present study provides visual experimental evidence for understanding restraining of charge carrier recombination in the semiconductor.