- Title
- Optical properties and oxidation of alpha-phase Ag-Al thin films
- Creator
- De Silva, Kaludewa S. B.; Keast, Vicki J.; Gentle, Angus; Cortie, Michael B.
- Relation
- ARC
- Relation
- Nanotechnology Vol. 28, Issue 9
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1361-6528/aa5782
- Publisher
- Institute of Physics Publishing
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- We investigate a series of Ag–Al thin films containing up to 12 at% Al with the purpose of discovering whether these alloys would be a better choice for nanophotonic applications than pure Ag. Variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry, AFM, x-ray diffraction and density functional theory are applied to explore and characterize the materials. Electromagnetic simulations of optical properties are used to place the results into a theoretical framework. We find that the increase in electron-to-atom ratio associated with the Al additions changes the optical properties: additions of the order of 1–2 at% Al are beneficial as they are associated with favorable changes in the dielectric function, but for greater additions of Al there is a flattening of the absorption edge and an increase in optical loss. In addition, contents of more than about 2 at% Al are associated with the onset of time-dependent intergranular oxidation, which causes a pronounced dip in the reflectance spectrum at about 2.3–2.4 eV (~500–540 nm).
- Subject
- plasmonics; silver alloys; thin films; optical properties; intergranular oxidation
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1355699
- Identifier
- uon:31514
- Identifier
- ISSN:0957-4484
- Language
- eng
- Reviewed
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