Fabrication of plasmonic gold-nanoparticle-transition metal oxides thin films for optoelectronic applications

Abstract

A simple, cost-effective, and one-step procedure for fabrication of gold-nanoparticle-transition metal oxide (Au-TMO) thin films with tuned optical and structural properties is described. In this approach, a homogeneous mixed precursor solution was used to fabricate Au-MoO3 and Au-WO3 thin films via a spray pyrolysis technique. The in-situ grown Au nanoparticles in the host matrices exhibited a characteristic surface plasmon resonance absorption in the visible-NIR region with peak positions at lambda(max )approximate to 600 nm, approximate to 550 nm, and approximate to 575 nm for Au-MoO3, Au-alpha-WO3 (amorphous), and Au-h-WO3 (hexagonal) films, respectively. The structural and morphological characterization measurements confirmed that the high purity in-situ grown Au nanoparticles were 10-100 nm in size, and individual particles were embedded into the host matrices. These films were applied as plasmon-induced photoelectric conversion devices with ITO/NiOx/Au-WO3/Ag structures as a prototype device. The device exhibited a short-circuit current of 0.1 mA with an open-circuit voltage of similar to 1.4 V under one-sun illumination. Our one-step fabrication approach is highly promising for fabricating other Au-TMOs thin films with tuned optical properties on a large area and can be applied for various optoelectronic applications. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.