Manufacture and characterization of optical coatings with incorporated copper island films

Abstract

Copper island films have been prepared by thermal evaporation in vacuum and characterized by in situ as well as ex situ spectrophotometry. The parallel investigation of the island morphology by means of transmission electron microscopy allowed us to establish a clear correlation between film structure and optical properties. The effective optical constants of the copper island films could be determined by means of a fit of their ex situ transmission and reflection spectra. The effective optical constants have been used for designing and preparing optical multilayer coatings applicable for attenuator or color filter specifications. Measured characteristics of the multilayer coatings are in very good agreement with the calculated spectra.

Metal-dielectric composite optical coatings: underlying physics, main models, characterization, design and application aspects

“…For this tutorial, we will use practical examples which stem from evaporation of metals in high vacuum conditions. Technical details are published in [15,16] . Generally, when preparing metal island films by evaporation, the classical rule ' quick and cold ' , which is important for obtaining high quality closed metal films, should be reversed.…”

“…As practical examples, we will make use of experimental data published in earlier studies [15,16] . Hereby, in study [15] , copper island films have been investigated, while [16] is focused on silver island films.…”

“…Hereby, in study [15] , copper island films have been investigated, while [16] is focused on silver island films. According to [15] , copper island films were deposited by thermal evaporation in a Leybold A1200 deposition system, equipped with quartz crystal monitors.…”

Anisotropic effective medium properties from interacting Ag nanoparticles in silicon dioxide

“…Equations (9) and (10) can be used to modify the MG relation [Eq. (2)] to include the interaction among particles in a bidimensional system and to describe the anisotropic dielectric properties of nanoparticle layers. Now the extended MG-Drude-Lorentz relation, which accounts for both the plasmon resonance in each particle and the interaction of charges in close particles, becomes…”

“…Nanostructured materials composed of noble metal nanoparticles have been attractive to the scientific community due to their amazing opportunities of application [1] as, for example, in optical coatings [2], plasmonic sensing [3], and solar cell efficiency improvement [4][5][6], where optical properties must be well known and understood to allow designing for a specific application [6][7][8]. This implies proper description of the effective medium dielectric function of the nanocomposite layers.…”