Optical Excitation of Hot Carriers and Photothermal Conversions with Transition Metal Nitrides and Transition Metal Carbides

Abstract

Photo-excitation of hot carriers in metallic nanostructures have been applied to various photoelectric conversions to harvest low-energy photons. The relaxed hot carriers become heat where the heated areas are limited to the surrounding of the metallic nanostructures, leading to indirect local heating. In contrast to the research on photoelectric and photothermal conversions using metals, our recent works have shown that transition metal nitrides and transition meal carbides can be alternative to metals. These materials are cost-effective and out-perform gold that has been used in most of the past studies. In the current articles, we briefly review our current photoelectric and photothermal conversions using transition metal nitrides and transition meal carbides and discuss the future direction.