“…B ulk heterojunctions of metal and semiconductor materials have long been of interest to fundamental science and device engineering due to the unique interaction of respective domains through the formation of the space-charge region, 1 which gives rise to numerous technological applications including Schottky barrier solar cells, 2 solid state lasers, 3 light-emitting diodes, 4 and field effect transistors. 5 Recently, the growing ability to fabricate metalÀ semiconductor (M-S) composites on a nanoscale has opened up new opportunities for designing multifunctional materials with properties that cannot be obtained in the bulk phase. Over the past decade, a wide variety of nanocomposite morphologies, including metal-core/semiconductor-shell heterostructures, 6À8 metal-tipped semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs), 9À17 and organically and nonepitaxially 6,18,19 coupled metalÀsemiconductor composites have all been proposed for manipulating energy at nanoscale with potential utilization of these nanomaterials in areas of photovoltaics and solar fuel production, 20 lasers, 21 and Schottky detectors.…”