Hybrid colloidal nanostructures: Synthesis, optical and photocatalytic properties

Recent advances in solution-phase colloidal synthesis and self-assembly introduce entirely new ways of controlling the size, shape, arrangement, and topology of semiconductor and metal nanomaterials, enabling complex multi-component structures to be created by design with nanometer precision, and offering new ways for manipulating wavefunctions, excitons, and surface plasmon resonances. Due to their versatile surface chemistry, colloidal semiconductor and metal nanoparticles are attractive objects for use as building blocks in different functional nanostructures. We review our recent efforts on colloidal synthesis of hybrid nanostructures comprising semiconductor and metal components, discuss their optical properties with a focus on energy transfer between components, and demonstrate the use of hybrid nanostructures for photocatalytic generation of hydrogen from water.