Chiral Au@CeO Helical Nanorods with Spatially Separated Structures for Polarization-Dependent N Photofixation.

Chiral photocatalytic nanomaterials possess numerous unique properties and hold promise for various applications in chemical synthesis, environmental protection, energy conversion, and photoelectric devices. Nevertheless, it is uncommon to develop effective means to enhance the asymmetric catalytic performances of chiral plasmonic nanomaterials. In this study, a type of L/D-Au@CeO helical nanorods (HNRs) was fabricated by selectively growing CeO on the surface of Au HNRs via a facile wet-chemistry construction method. Chiral Au@CeO HNRs, featuring Au and CeO with spatially separated structures, exhibited the highest photocatalytic performance for N fixation, being 50.80±2.64 times greater than that of Au HNRs. Furthermore, when L-Au@CeO HNRs were exposed to left circularly polarized light (CPL) and D-Au@CeO HNRs were exposed to right CPL, their photocatalytic efficiency was enhanced by 3.06±0.06 times compared to the samples illuminated with the opposite CPL, which can be attributed to the asymmetrical generation of hot carriers upon CPL excitation. This study not only offers a simple approach to enhance the photocatalytic performance of chiral plasmonic nanomaterials but also demonstrates the potential of chiral plasmonic materials for application in specific photocatalytic reactions, such as N fixation.