Optical response of supported gold nanodisks

It is shown that the ellipsometric spectra of short range ordered planar arrays of gold nanodisks supported on glass substrates can be described by modeling the nanostructured arrays as uniaxial homogeneous layers with dielectric functions of the Lorentz type. However, appreciable deviations from experimental data are observed in calculated spectra of irradiance measurements. A qualitative and quantitative description of all measured spectra is obtained with a uniaxial effective medium dielectric function in which the nanodisks are modeled as oblate spheroids. Dynamic depolarization factors in the long-wavelength approximation and interaction with the substrate are considered. Similar results are obtained calculating the optical spectra using the island-film theory. Nevertheless, a small in-plane anisotropy and quadrupolar coupling effects reveal a very complex optical response of the nanostructured arrays

Multifractal analysis of the electronic states in the Fibonacci superlattice under weak electric fields

Influence of the weak electric field on the electronic structure of the Fibonacci superlattice is considered. The electric field produces a nonlinear dynamics of the energy spectrum of the aperiodic superlattice. Mechanism of the nonlinearity is explained in terms of energy levels anticrossings. The multifractal formalism is applied to investigate the effect of weak electric field on the statistical properties of electronic eigenfunctions. It is shown that the applied electric field does not remove the multifractal character of the electronic eigenfunctions, and that the singularity spectrum remains non-parabolic, however with a modified shape. Changes of the distances between energy levels of neighbouring eigenstates lead to the changes of the inverse participation ratio of the corresponding eigenfunctions in the weak electric field. It is demonstrated, that the local minima of the inverse participation ratio in the vicinity of the anticrossings correspond to discontinuity of the first derivative of the difference between marginal values of the singularity strength. Analysis of the generalized dimension as a function of the electric field shows that the electric field correlates spatial fluctuations of the neighbouring electronic eigenfunction amplitudes in the vicinity of anticrossings, and the nonlinear character of the scaling exponent confirms multifractality of the corresponding electronic eigenfunctions.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

Optical properties of MgH2 measured in situ in a novel gas cell for ellipsometry/spectrophotometry

The dielectric properties of alpha-MgH2 are investigated in the photon energy range between 1 and 6.5 eV. For this purpose, a novel sample configuration and experimental setup are developed that allow both optical transmission and ellipsometric measurements of a transparent thin film in equilibrium with hydrogen. We show that alpha-MgH2 is a transparent, colour neutral insulator with a band gap of 5.6 +/- 0.1 eV. It has an intrinsic transparency of about 80% over the whole visible spectrum. The dielectric function found in this work confirms very recent band structure calculations using the GW approximation by Alford and Chou [J.A. Alford and M.Y. Chou (unpublished)]. As Pd is used as a cap layer we report also the optical properties of PdHx thin films.Comment: REVTeX4, 15 pages, 12 figures, 5 table

Spectroscopy studies of 4H-SiC

Calculations of the total dielectric functions and the optical bandgap energy (OBGE) of 4HSiC were performed by the full-potential linear muffin-tin-orbital method. The results are compared to spectroscopic ellipsometry dielectric measurements agreeing closely over in a wide range of energies. The obtained theoretical value of the (OBGE) agrees very closely with the measured ones obtained by transmission and photoacoustic spectroscopies at room temperature performed on 470 µm thick wafer and a 25 µm thick homoepitaxial layer of 4H-SiC samples grown (n-type, Siface) by hot wall CVD

Mueller-matrix ellipsometry studies of optically active structures in scarab beetles

The complexity of multilayers, photonic crystals, metamaterials and other artificial materials has promoted the use of spectroscopic, variable angle, generalized and Mueller-matrix ellipsometry. Naturally occurring structures may show even higher complexity than artificial structures but with a more narrow range of constituent materials. Fascinating reflection properties result from intricate photonic structures in, for instance, the wing scales and cuticles of insects. Currently there is a large interest to explore such functional supramolecular architectures for exploitation in nanotechnology. In this study, Mueller-matrix spectroscopic ellipsometry is applied in the spectral range of 250 to 1000 nm to investigate optical response and structures of the cuticle of Scarab beetles of the Cetoniinae subfamily. The cuticle of Cetonia aurata (the rose chafer, la cétoine dorée) is green with a metallic appearance and reflects left-handed circular/elliptically polarized light. It has been suggested that the polarization of this metallic gloss is caused by a helical structure in the chitinous cuticle. We find that the polarization effect is limited to the narrow spectral range 470-550 nm whereas for shorter or longer wavelengths the reflection properties are similar to those from a near-dielectric material. Model calculations and parameterization of the nanostructure employing a heliocoidal structure are discussed. As a comparison the polarization effects from light reflected from two other beetles will be presented. Coptomia laevis has a similar appearance as Cetonia aurata but has very different polarization properties. The golden Plusiotis argentiola has very interesting properties showing both left and right-handed polarization depending on incidence angle and wavelength