The optical response of silver island films

The optical behaviour of silver island films, embedded in optical thin film materials, has been studied by spectrophotometry. The silver cluster surface plasmon absorption line position and width strongly depend on deposition temperature and ambient material. Electron micrographs of the samples allow to establish the correlation between silver cluster geometry and optical behaviour. The first results of Rigorous Coupled Wave Approximation (RCWA) calculations reproduce the spectrophotometric experimental results.