The local surface plasmon resonances of gold nanoparticles have the potential to create alternative pathways for organic chemical reactions. These transformations depend on various physical factors, such as the temperature, illumination regime, and nanoparticle type. However, the role of chemical factors associated with organic reactants, including the molecular structure, electronic effects, and bonding with the metal surface, is often underestimated. To explore the role of these chemical factors, we synthesized five alkoxyamines (AAs) with different chemical and electronic structures and used electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy to study the kinetics of plasmon-induced homolysis. The kinetic data revealed that the rate constant (kd) for plasmon-assisted homolysis is dependent on the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy of the AAs, which cannot be described by the kinetic parameters or activation energies observed in thermal homolysis experiments. The proximity of the HOMO to the Fermi energy…
