Leveraging plasmonic hot electrons to quench defect emission in metal–semiconductor nanostructured hybrids

Modeling light-matter interactions in hybrid plasmonic materials is vital to their widening relevance from optoelectronics to photocatalysis. Here, we explore photoluminescence (PL) from ZnO nanorods (ZNRs) embedded with gold nanoparticles (Au NPs). A progressive increase in Au NP concentration introduces significant structural disorder and defects in ZNRs, which paradoxically quenches defect related visible PL while intensifying the near band edge (NBE) emission. Under UV excitation, the simulated semi-classical model realizes PL from ZnO with sub-bandgap defect states, eliciting visible emissions that are absorbed by Au NPs to generate a non-equilibrium hot carrier distribution. The photo-stimulated hot carriers, transferred to ZnO, substantially modify its steady-state luminescence, reducing NBE emission lifetime and altering the abundance of ionized defect states, finally reducing visible emission. The simulations show that the change in the interfacial band bending at the Au-ZnO interface under optical illumination facilitates charge transfer between the components. This work provides a general foundation to observe and model the hot carrier dynamics and strong light-matter interactions in hybrid plasmonic systems.