A hydrogel CZS/NiS@HR for photocatalytic hydrogen production is fabricated through solvothermal synthesis of CdZnS (CZS) composites, followed by physical cross-linking and self-assembly. This material facilitates spatially oriented charge separation via heterojunctions, effectively suppressing electron-hole recombination. The hydrogen evolution rate reaches 65 mmol/g/h, with stable catalytic activity maintained at 45 mmol/g/h after five cycles. The hydrogel structure prevents the release of toxic Cd 2+ into the environment. Compared to CZS, the UV absorption edge of CZS/NiS@HR is significantly redshifted, confirming successful Ni-based heterojunction surface modification. The three-dimensional network of the hydrogel enhances H + diffusion, thereby improving photocatalytic hydrogen production efficiency while mitigating sulfide photo-oxygen corrosion and reducing catalyst costs. This study underscores the synergistic effects of heterojunctions and hydrogels in promoting sustainable photocatalytic hydrogen production.
Strong coupling originating from excitons of quantum dots and plasmons in nanocavities can be realized at room temperature due to the large electromagnetic field enhancement of plasmons, offering building blocks for quantum information systems, ultralow-power switches and lasers. However, most of the current strong coupling effects were realized by the interaction between excitons and far-field light excited bright plasmon modes in the visible range. Beyond that, there is still a lack of direct imaging of polariton modes at the nanoscale. In this work, by using cathodoluminescence, ultrastrong coupling with Rabi splitting exceeding 1 eV between bonding breathing plasmons of aluminum (Al) metal–insulator–metal (MIM) cavities and excited states of CdZnS/ZnS quantum dots was observed in the near-ultraviolet (UV) spectrum. Further, the hybridization of the QDs excitons and bonding breathing plasmonic modes is verified by deep-subwavelength images of polaritonic modes in real-space. Analytic analysis based on the coupled oscillator model and full-wave electromagnetic simulations is consistent with our experimental results. Our work not only indicates the great potential of electron excited plasmon modes for strong coupling applications, but also extends the polaritonic frequency to the UV range with Al nanocavities.
危险品化学品经营许可证（带存储）