“A Lot’s in a Name”: Insights from Debates on Thermal and Nonthermal Effects in Plasmonic Catalysis

Plasmonic catalysis is uniquely positioned between photochemistry/electrochemistry and thermal chemistry such that multiple factors may compete to dominate the reaction enhancement mechanism. The adoption of norms originating in both photochemistry and thermal chemistry has resulted in the use of language and methods of data analysis, which, in the context of plasmonic catalysis, may be implicitly contradictory. This article tracks several years of research toward understanding thermal and nonthermal effects in plasmonic catalysis and culminates with a discussion on how the choice of language and presentation of data can be tuned to avoid subtle yet significant contradictory implications.