Insights into the relationship between inherent materials properties of PZT and photochemistry for the development of nanostructured silver

Recently there has been great interest in using patterned ferroelectric materials for the photochemical growth of metal nanostructures. Variations in surface and sub-surface structure influence the photochemical processes. Here we show that crystallography, and hence remnant polarization, of the ferroelectric affects photo-deposition. The ratio of metal growth on c^- and c ⁺ domains varies from 1: 2 for [100] to 1: 100 for [111]. This is shown to be dependent on the variations in the band structure.