Browsing by Author "Hoener, Benjamin S."

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    From tunable core-shell nanoparticles to plasmonic drawbridges: Active control of nanoparticle optical properties
    (AAAS, 2015) Byers, Chad P.; Zhang, Hui; Swearer, Dayne F.; Yorulmaz, Mustafa; Hoener, Benjamin S.; Huang, Da; Hoggard, Anneli; Chang, Wei-Shun; Mulvaney, Paul; Ringe, Emilie; Halas, Naomi J.; Nordlander, Peter; Link, Stephan; Landes, Christy F.
    The optical properties of metallic nanoparticles are highly sensitive to interparticle distance, giving rise to dramatic but frequently irreversible color changes. By electrochemical modification of individual nanoparticles and nanoparticle pairs, we induced equally dramatic, yet reversible, changes in their optical properties. We achieved plasmon tuning by oxidation-reduction chemistry of Ag-AgCl shells on the surfaces of both individual and strongly coupled Au nanoparticle pairs, resulting in extreme but reversible changes in scattering line shape. We demonstrated reversible formation of the charge transfer plasmon mode by switching between capacitive and conductive electronic coupling mechanisms. Dynamic single-particle spectroelectrochemistry also gave an insight into the reaction kinetics and evolution of the charge transfer plasmon mode in an electrochemically tunable structure. Our study represents a highly useful approach to the precise tuning of the morphology of narrow interparticle gaps and will be of value for controlling and activating a range of properties such as extreme plasmon modulation, nanoscopic plasmon switching, and subnanometer tunable gap applications.
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    Single-Particle Spectroscopy Reveals Heterogeneity in Electrochemical Tuning of the Localized Surface Plasmon
    (American Chemical Society, 2014) Byers, Chad P.; Hoener, Benjamin S.; Chang, Wei-Shun; Yorulmaz, Mustafa; Link, Stephan; Landes, Christy F.; Rice Quantum Institute; Laboratory for Nanophotonics
    A hyperspectral imaging method was developed that allowed the identification of heterogeneous plasmon response from 50 nm diameter gold colloidal particles on a conducting substrate in a transparent three-electrode spectroelectrochemical cell under non-Faradaic conditions. At cathodic potentials, we identified three distinct behaviors from different nanoparticles within the same sample: irreversible chemical reactions, reversible chemical reactions, and reversible charge density tuning. The irreversible reactions in particular would be difficult to discern in alternate methodologies. Additional heterogeneity was observed when single nanoparticles demonstrating reversible charge density tuning in the cathodic regime were measured dynamically in anodic potential ranges. Some nanoparticles that showed charge density tuning in the cathodic range also showed signs of an additional chemical tuning mechanism in the anodic range. The expected changes in nanoparticle free-electron density were modeled using a charge density-modified Drude dielectric function and Mie theory, a commonly used model in colloidal spectroelectrochemistry. Inconsistencies between experimental results and predictions of this common physical model were identified and highlighted. The broad range of responses on even a simple sample highlights the rich experimental and theoretical playgrounds that hyperspectral single-particle electrochemistry opens.
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    Snapshot Hyperspectral Imaging (SHI) for Revealing Irreversible and Heterogeneous Plasmonic Processes
    (American Chemical Society, 2018) Kirchner, Silke R.; Smith, Kyle W.; Hoener, Benjamin S.; Collins, Sean S.E.; Wang, Wenxiao; Cai, Yi-Yu; Kinnear, Calum; Zhang, Heyou; Chang, Wei-Shun; Mulvaney, Paul; Landes, Christy F.; Link, Stephan
    Plasmon-mediated processes provide unique opportunities for selective photocatalysis, photovoltaics, and electrochemistry. Determining the influence of particle heterogeneity is an unsolved problem because often such processes introduce irreversible changes to the nanocatalysts and/or their surroundings. The challenge lies in monitoring heterogeneous nonequilibrium dynamics via the slow, serial methods that are intrinsic to almost all spectral acquisition methods with suitable spatial and/or spectral resolution. Here, we present a new metrology, snapshot hyperspectral imaging (SHI), that facilitates in situ readout of the tube lens image and first-order diffraction image of the dark-field scattering from many individual plasmonic nanoparticles to extract their respective spectra simultaneously. Evanescent wave excitation with a supercontinuum laser enabled signal-to-noise ratios greater than 100 with a time resolution of only 1 ms. Throughput of ∼100 simultaneous spectra was achieved with a highly ordered nanoparticle array, yielding a spectral resolution of 0.21 nm/pixel. Additionally, an alternative dark-field excitation geometry utilized a combination of a supercontinuum laser and a reflecting objective for polarization-controlled SHI. Using a simplified version of SHI, we temporally resolve on the millisecond time scale the heterogeneous kinetics of an electrochemical surface redox reaction for many individual gold nanoparticles simultaneously.