A novel rear reflector structure that combines NIR light harvesting β-NaGdF4:Yb, Er, Fe upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) and light reflecting silver particles has been successfully used to improve the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The power conversion efficiency of DSSCs with a rear reflector was 7.04%, which is an increase of 21.3% compared to the cell without a rear ref...

We demonstrate a method by which few-layer graphene samples can be etched along crystallographic axes by thermally activated metallic nanoparticles. The technique results in long (>1 microm) crystallographic edges etched through to the insulating substrate, making the process potentially useful for atomically precise graphene device fabrication. This advance could enable atomically precise cons...

We demonstrate that optically driven two-dimensional lattices of nonlinear metal nanoparticles can support a variety of dissipative localized modes including Faraday ripples, trapped and walking solitons, oscillons, and switching waves connecting different polarization states.

A simple and versatile nanoscale force induced precipitation approach for the separation of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was developed. The AuNPs show sharp size-dependent colloidal stability thresholds as a function of salt concentration. Upon separation, the AuNPs were electrostatically self-assembled onto silicon substrates by fine-tuning interparticle and particle-substrate forces, forming 2D...

Chiral ligand-modified metal nanoparticles possess an attractive potential for application in asymmetric synthesis. This article focuses on chiral-nanoparticle-catalyzed asymmetric C-C bond formation reactions and discusses the nature of the active species.

The shape of metallic nanoparticles used to enhance the performance of thin-film solar cells is described by Gielis' superformula and optimized by an evolutionary algorithm. As a result, we have found a lens-like nanoparticle capable of improving the short circuit current density to 19.93 mA/cm2. Compared with a two-scale nanospherical configuration recently reported to synthesize the merits of...

Towards a robust and universal functionalization procedure with alkanethiols for gold nanorods and plasmonic nanoparticles, a straightforward two-step approach is described.

The radiation damping rate of plasmon resonances in pairs of spherical gold nanoparticles is calculated. The radiative line width of the plasmon resonance indicates significant far-field coupling between the nanoparticles over distances many times the particle diameter. The radiation damping of the coupled particle-plasmon mode alternates between superradiant and subradiant behavior when the pa...

Computational microscopy tools, in particular lensfree on-chip imaging, provide a large field-of-view along with a long depth-of-field, which makes it feasible to rapidly analyze large volumes of specimen using a compact and light-weight on-chip imaging architecture. To bring molecular specificity to this high-throughput platform, here we demonstrate the use of plasmon-resonant metallic nanopar...

We explore the optical response of two-dimensional (2D) arrays of silver nanoparticles, focussing our attention on structures for which the individual particles in isolation support both dipolar and quadrupolar localised surface plasmon modes. For individual spheres we show that when dipolar and quadrupolar modes are excited simultaneously, interference leads to most of the scattered light bein...