Far-Infrared Absorption of Silver-Particle Composites

Abstract

The far-infrared absorption of oxide-coated small Ag particles in a Teflon insulating host has been measured. Excellent agreement between the experimental absorption and the Maxwell-Garnett theory is obtained when the particle size distribution and oxide coating are taken into account. We show for the first time experimental evidence that a highly absorbing oxide coating will enhance the electric-dipole absorption. Moreover, we explicitly show that the anomalous absorption of oxide-coated Ag particles is mainly due to clustering.