https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050335
Optical response of thin plasma-polymer films with non-spherical silver nanoparticles
1
TU Chemnitz, Institut für Physik, 09107
Chemnitz, Germany
2
RWTH Aachen, I. Physikalisches Institut, 52056 Aachen, Germany
Corresponding author: a hei@iwmh.fhg.de
Received:
23
July
1997
Revised:
27
October
1997
Accepted:
3
December
1997
Published online: 15 June 1998
The size and shape of silver nanoparticles which are embedded in a
plasma-polymer matrix were obtained by transmission electron microscopy
and analyzed with optical image processing.
We used a sample in which silver particles were present before and after
reshaping caused by thermal annealing in adjacent regions.
As most of the particles appeared as elongated rotational ellipsoids,
the major and minor half axis were determined for each particle.
We adopted the model of Gans in the Rayleigh approximation
to calculate for each investigated particle the extinction spectra
from 
to 
using the data from the
image processing. The various spectra for 368 silver particles
were added to get total extinction spectra for the sample as deposited
and after reshaping, respectively. We found good agreement
with the experimental spectra.
The blue shift of the plasma-resonance absorption,
which occurs due to the reshaping of the silver particles
during thermal annealing, was also confirmed by using only
changes in the particle sizes and shapes.
PACS: 78.66.Vs – Microparticles / 61.46.+w – Clusters, nanoparticles, and nanocrystalline materials / 81.05.Zx – New materials: theory, design, and fabrication
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 1998
