Optically Governed Dynamic Surface Charge Redistribution of Hybrid Plasmo-Pyroelectric Nanosystems

Though plasmonic effect is making some headway in the energy harvesting realm, its fundamental charge transfer mechanism to a large extent is attributed to the hot-carrier generation at the contact interface. Herein this work attempts to elucidate the physical origin of light induced plasmo-pyroelectric enhancement based on charge density manipulation on surface state in the vicinity of the metal-ferroelectric contact interface. More importantly, by tuning the band bending, it is shown that the charge density on the surface state of a hybrid plasmo-pyroelectric (BaTiO₃ -Ag) nanosystem can be manipulated and largely increased under the resonant blue light illumination (363 nm). It is also demonstrated that owing to this effect, the spatial pyroelectric activity of a hybrid plasmo-pyroelectric nanosystem governs 46% enhancement in pyroelectric coefficient. This research highlights the optically regulated charge density in plasmo-pyroelectric nanosystems, which could pave a new avenue for energy harvesting/conversion devices with distinguished advantages in wireless, photonic-controlled, localized, and dynamic stimulation.