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Nanoscale investigation of the reactivity of photocatalytic systems is crucial for their fundamental understanding and improving their design and applicability. Here, we present a photochemical nanoscopy technique that unlocks the local spatial detection of molecular products during plasmonic hot-carrier-driven photocatalytic reactions with nanometric precision. By applying the methodology to Au/TiO 2 plasmonic photocatalysts, we experimentally and theoretically determined that smaller and denser Au nanoparticle arrays present lower optical contribution with quantum efficiency in hot-hole-driven photocatalysis closely related to the population heterogeneity. As expected, the highest quantum yield from a redox probe oxidation is achieved at the plasmon peak. Investigating a single plasmonic nanodiode, we unravel the areas where oxidation and reduction products are evolved with subwavelength resolution (∼200 nm), illustrating the bipolar behavior of such nanosystems. These results open the way to quantitative investigations at the nanoscale to evaluate the photocatalytic reactivity of low-dimensional materials in a variety of chemical reactions.

In the current context of energetic transition, investigations of alternative complex systems require tools such as scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), offering interesting opportunities as an electroanalytical technique to evaluate innovative catalysts. Herein, we demonstrate how a judicious choice of probe and substrate materials opens up improved performances to achieve steady-state measurements for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalytic activity detection through redox competition scanning electrochemical microscopy (RC-SECM). On the probe side, we show that using gold enhances the stability of the local oxygen concentration detection in comparison to the regularly used platinum one. On the substrate side, we evaluate boron-doped diamond as an appealing alternative to classical support substrate, that shows a low ORR activity, high stability and very good reusability. This work introduces an alternative approach for quantitative measurements with SECM, improving measurement ease, comfort and reproducibility, thus paving the way towards standardized benchmarking and numerical simulation-based parameter extraction.