Internship/Master project: Probing Interfaces in Plasmonic Gold-Titania Nanorods
Hybrid plasmonic-semiconductor nanoparticles combine strong light absorption in metals with longer- lived charge carriers in semiconductors, making efficient hot-electron injection across the metal- semiconductor interface key for applications such as photocatalysis. In this project, you will study and engineer the interface between gold nanorods and a TiO₂ shell. Crystalline TiO₂ improves charge- transfer efficiency, but the crystallization process can alter the gold core's shape and hence its optical response. Therefore, different crystallization pathways will be explored to improve the interface while preserving plasmonic properties. The charge transfer efficiency will be measured using single-particle dark-field scattering and (time-resolved) photoluminescence. These measurements will be correlated with structural data from electron microscopy and tomography to r...