Hot carriers generated by the non-radiative decay of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of noble metal nanoparticles are widely investigated in applications ranging from solar energy conversion to photocatalysis, and photodetection. From the perspective of sustainable development of the LSPR based applications, it is important to find metallic materials that are cheap and plentiful and show excellent hot carrier properties. In this context, we investigate the possibility of alloying Au with Al to develop efficient LSPR materials for hot carriers-based applications. Taking thermodynamically stable AuAl₂ and AuAl as examples, we study their electronic structures, generation rates, energetic distribution, relaxation times, and mean free paths of hot carriers originating from direct and phonon-assisted indirect electronic transitions, which are two of the main channels for generating high-energy hot carriers from the decay of LSPR, and compare the results with that of Au and Al metals. It is found that both AuAl₂ and AuAl show larger hot carrier generation rates than Au and the resulting hot carriers are energetically higher than that in Au. Meanwhile, the transport properties of hot carriers in AuAl₂ and AuAl outperform that of Au, which is manifested through comparable or even longer relaxation times and mean free paths. Consequently, it is believed that the Au-Al intermetallic compounds should be a series of efficient LSPR materials for hot carriers-based applications, which is comparable with or even better than the noble metal Au. These results are helpful for the sustainable development of related fields.

由贵金属纳米粒子的局部表面等离子体激元共振（LSPR）的非辐射衰减产生的热载流子在从太阳能转换到光催化和光检测的应用中得到了广泛研究。从基于LSPR的应用程序的可持续发展的角度来看，重要的是找到廉价而丰富的金属材料，这些金属材料具有出色的热载体性能。在这种情况下，我们研究了将Au与Al合金化的可能性，以开发用于基于热载流子的应用的高效LSPR材料。服用热力学稳定的AuAl ₂以AuAl为例，我们研究了它们的电子结构，产生速率，能量分布，弛豫时间以及源自直接和声子辅助间接电子跃迁的热载流子的平均自由程，这是产生高能的两个主要途径LSPR的衰减产生热载流子，并将结果与​​金和铝金属进行比较。发现AuAl ₂和AuAl均显示出比Au大的热载流子生成率，并且产生的热载流子在能量上比Au高。同时，AuAl ₂中热载流子的传输性质AuAl的性能优于Au，这通过相当甚至更长的弛豫时间和平均自由程来体现。因此，据信Au-Al金属间化合物应该是用于基于热载流子的应用的一系列有效的LSPR材料，其与贵金属Au相当或什至更好。这些结果有助于相关领域的可持续发展。