Photoelectric Energy Conversion of Plasmon-Generated Hot Carriers in Metal–Insulator–Semiconductor Structures

Plasmonic excitation in metals has received great attention for light localization and control of light-matter interactions at the nanoscale with a plethora of applications in absorption enhancement, surface-enhanced Raman scattering, or biosensing. Electrically active plasmonic devices, which had remained underexplored, have recently become a growing field of interest. In this report we introduce a metal–insulator–semiconductor heterostructure for plasmo-electric energy conversion, a novel architecture to harvest hot-electrons derived from plasmonic excitations. We demonstrate external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 4% at 460 nm using a Ag nanostructured electrode and EQE of 1.3% at 550 nm employing a Au nanostructured electrode. The insulator interfacial layer has been found to play a crucial role in interface passivation, a requisite in photovoltaic applications to achieving both high open-circuit voltages (0.5 V) and fill-factors (0.5), but its introduction simultaneously modifies hot-electron injection ...