Converting Carbon Dioxide and Water Into Hydrocarbons with Solar Engergy and Nanostructured Metal Surfaces

We report femtosecond laser induced self-assembled metal nanostructure arrays can directly synthesize liquid and solid hydrocarbon compounds from carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight at a high production rate which is much higher than those in previous studies. Moreover, different from previous artificial photosynthesis works, this phenomenon presents a new mechanism that, through a surface-enhanced photodissociation process, nature-like photosynthesis can be performed artificially.