Аннотация:Metal nanoparticles (NP) attract considerable interest for their fascinating optical properties based on the localized surface plasmon resonance, light-induced collective oscillations of their conduction electrons. Since the wavelength of localized surface plasmon resonance depends on the size, the shape, and the environment, NP are extremely useful in optical and nonlinear-optical applications. NP show great potential in material physics and chemistry, they open up the perspectives of creating highly efficient catalysts and miniaturized optical devices for chemical or biological sensing. Creation and characterization of artificial composite systems consisted of a dielectric substrate and NP are nowadays the subject of many investigations.
Here we consider the transparent three-dimensional composite based on a nanoporous glass substrate with cylindrical pores of radius of 2 nm. Silver NP are synthesized via the impregnation of the nanopores with a silver-containing precursor and following thermo-chemical processing. Such composites are promising for catalysis and sensing [1], they have a wide range of possible applications in biomedicine, biochemistry, pharmaceutics [2]. The presence of the NP inside the pores causes a well-defined peak in the spectrum of extinction which is used here to characterize the microstructure of the nanocomposite. The spectrum is centered at the wavelength value ~400 nm which is in a good agreement with the results of calculations for the silver NP with the size of several nanometers. However, the measured spectrum is significantly broader than the one calculated for the spherical NP. Assuming the cylindrical shape of the nanopores, we consider the NP as spheroids. The aspect ratio distribution of the NP is estimated here using Gans extension [3] of Mie theory [4].
The work is supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant #11-02-01309-аhg and by M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University Program of Development.
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