LAUSR

Excitation of localized surface plasmon (LSP) modes in metal nanoparticles has been shown to reduce the energy barrier for photochemical reactions, even allowing certain reactions to occur at room temperature. Recently, hybrid plasmonic-catalytic systems have been proposed as an efficient route towards channeling energy from a plasmonic nanoparticle to the catalytic metal [1-2]. However, the stochastic nature of catalyst sites on the nanoparticle surface does not allow efficient energy flow pathway from a localized plasmonic hotspot of reaction relevant energy. Moreover, a mechanism to modify the location of plasmonic hotspots to overlap with the catalytically active sites is still missing. Here we demonstrate spatially localized and selective transfer of energy into and out of a nanoparticle using a non-uniform thickness coating of dielectric layer. This approach allows modification of the local plasmonic response at nanometer scale based the location of the catalytic active sites, and can be used in nanoparticle engineering to achieve an optimal catalytic efficiency.