In Situ Optical Imaging-Enabled New Insights into Nanoscale Photofunctional Materials: Visualization, Manipulation, and Beyond

Photofunctional materials, especially semiconductorsand plasmonicmetals, have attracted increasing interest for solar energy harvestingand utilization. Structurally engineering these materials into thenanoscale remarkably enhances their efficiencies. However, this alsoexacerbates the structural complexities and heterogeneous activitiesamong individuals and compromises the efficiencies of traditionalbulk-level activity measurements. Over the last decades, insitu optical imaging has emerged as a promising tool to disentanglesuch heterogeneities of activities among individuals. Through thediscussion of representative work in this Perspective, we highlightthe power of in situ optical imaging in revealingnew findings from photofunctional materials, including (1) revealingthe spatiotemporal heterogeneities of chemical reactivities at a single(sub)particle level and (2) visually manipulating the photophysicaland photochemical process of photofunctional materials at the micro/nanoscale.Finally, we conclude with our opinions on easily ignored aspects during in situ optical imaging of photofunctional materials andthe future directions in this field.

Automated summary

In situ optical imaging is a promising tool to study the structural complexities and heterogeneous activities of photofunctional materials. It can reveal the spatiotemporal heterogeneities of chemical reactivities at a single (sub)particle level and visually manipulate the photophysical and photochemical processes at the micro/nanoscale.