Plasmonic energy transfer from silver nanoparticles to cerium oxide

The subject of this thesis is a study of the coupling of plasmonic silver nanoparticles with cerium oxide, since it is a promising method to improve the efficiency of catalysts or photovoltaic devices. In fact recent studies have drawn attention to plasmonic energy transfer in metal nanoparticles embedded within a wide band gap oxide matrix, and this thesis project is focused on the specific case of Ag@CeO2. The goal is to investigate the effects of localized surface plasmon resonance excitation, a phenomenon that occurs on a time-scale of femtoseconds. In order to obtain time-resolved information from these effects, ultrafast pump-probe X-rays absorption spectroscopy experiments are carried out at the FERMI free electron laser, by implementing a pump at the plasmonic energy and a probe at the Ce N4,5 edge energy on Ag@CeO2 samples deposited on parylene-N substrates. This experiment has been implemented with static absorption experiments using the BEAR beamline at ELETTRA synchrotron and †œin campus†� experiments with X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, UV-V optical absorption and low-vacuum Scanning Electron Microscopy.