Development of functional nanostructures and their applications in catalysis and solar cells

The development of functional nanostructured materials, which show unique and versatile characteristics, is highly desirable for important applications, such as catalysis and solar cells. In this review, we first summarize our recent studies on the synthesis of nanohybrid catalysts (such as bimetallic and binary metal oxide nanostructures) and their catalytic behavior in diverse catalytic reactions. We then present our recent developments on plasmonic nanostructures (Au and Ag), and demonstrate and discuss how they may be explored for enhancing photocatalysis and solar cell performance. Subsequently, we describe our work on the synthesis of semiconductor nanocrystals, also known as quantum dots, and their application in solar cells. Besides traditional wet chemical method, we also introduce an alternative, physical method, pulsed laser ablation, toward synthesizing these nanostructures with a unique "bare and clean" surface, highly relevant to catalytic, plasmonic and photovoltaic applications. Finally, perspectives on future advances of nanostructured catalytic and plasmonic materials as well as quantum dots are outlined. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.