Surface plasmon-driven photocatalysis in ambient, aqueous and high-vacuum monitored by SERS and TERS

The review described here show the plasmonic catalysis studied by SERS and TERS techniques in atmosphere, aqueous and high-vacuum environments. However, to understand the full plasmonic catalysis potential, many challenges need to be overcome. Compared with photocatalysis, the plasmon in plasmonic catalysis plays an important role in the processes of excitation and chemical reactions. Although the plasmonic catalysis can be attributed to the hot electrons generated from plasmon decay, the detailed mechanism has not been completely understood. Additional experimental and theoretical confirmations of the plasmonic catalysis are expected in the near future. The applications of plasmonic catalysis such as dissociation of hydrogen and water splitting have been reported, but high efficiency and more widely applications of plasmonic catalysis are desired. The new research field of plasmonic catalysis is currently growing and is expected to increase the study of these nanoscale techniques as described in this review article. The mechanism of both oxidation and reduction reactions in electrochemical reactions are not very clear, which should be interpreted clearly in further experimental and theoretical investigations. In the future, plasmon-driven surface catalysis reaction may be further studied from several aspects: (1) revealing the mechanism of both oxidation and reduction reactions in electrochemical reactions, (2) time-dependent ultrafast catalysis in SERS or TERS, (3)temperature-dependent plasmonic catalysis in high vacuum TERS at low temperature, (4) catalysis by propagating surface plasmons using remote-excitation SERS for disease detection and treatment,(5) plasmonic catalysis for organic synthesis and clean energy con-version, and so on.