Light-Controlled Nanoparticle Collision Experiments.

Electrochemical monitoring of catalytically amplified collisions of individual metal nanoparticles (NP) with ultramicroelectrodes (UME) has been extensively used to study electrocatalysis, mass-transport, and charge-transfer processes at the single NP level. More recently, photoelectrochemical collision experiments were carried out with semiconductive NPs. Here we introduce two new types of light-controlled nano-impact experiments. The first experiment involves localized photodeposition of catalyst (Pt) on TiO2 NPs with a glass-sheathed carbon fiber simultaneously serving as the light guide and collector UME. The collisions of in situ prepared Pt@TiO2 NPs with the carbon surface produced blips of water oxidation current, while the activity of pristine TiO2 NPs was too low to yield measurable signal. In another experiment, collisions of catalytic (Ir oxide) NPs with the semiconductor (Nb doped n-type TiO2 rutile single crystal) electrode are monitored by measuring the photocurrent of water oxidation.