Photonic Crystals for Plasmonic Photocatalysis

Noble metal (NM)-modified wide-bandgap semiconductors with activity under visible light (Vis) irradiation, due to localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), known as plasmonic photocatalysts, have been intensively studied over the last few years. Despite the novelty of the topic, a large number of reports have already been published, discussing the optimal properties, synthesis methods and mechanism clarification. It has been proposed that both efficient light harvesting and charge carriers' migration are detrimental for high and stable activity under Vis irradiation. Accordingly, photonic crystals (PCs) with photonic bandgap (PBG) and slow photon effects seem to be highly attractive for efficient use of incident photons. Therefore, the study on PCs-based plasmonic photocatalysts has been conducted, mainly on titania inverse opal (IO) modified with nanoparticles (NPs) of NM. Although, the research is quite new and only several reports have been published, it might be concluded that the matching between LSPR and PBG (especially at red edge) by tuning of NMNPs size and IO-void diameter, respectively, is the most crucial for the photocatalytic activity.