The local electric fields in a semicontinuous metal film are shown to exhibit giant fluctuations in the visible and infrared spectral ranges, when the dissipation in metallic grains is small. The field fluctuations result in significantly enhanced Raman scattering from semicontinuous metal films. The scaling analysis is performed to describe giant Raman scattering in the vicinity of the percolation threshold. A theory of Raman scattering from these films is developed. A numerical method based on the theory is suggested and used to calculate Raman scattering from silver semicontinuous films. Results of the simulations are compared with recent experimental observations. ͓S0163-1829͑97͒03119-6͔
We have continuously measured in situ reflectance and transmittance of percolating gold films over the entire range of surface coverage P, in the IR regime (1.7 and 2.2 μm). The samples present similar optical and electrical behavior, when compared on a normalized thickness scale. In the fractal region, close to the percolation threshold, the optical properties show a linear dependence on the surface coverage parameter, in agreement with a renormalization argument previously suggested. A strong absorption (about 40%), whose origin is not well understood, is found in the fractal region. The interpretations previously proposed by other authors are not applicable. We conclude that geometrical effects must dominate the optical properties over a large range of surface coverage.
Local field distributions in random metal-dielectric films near a percolation threshold are experimentally studied using scanning near-field optical microscopy ͑SNOM͒. The surface-plasmon oscillations in such percolation films are localized in small nanometer-scale areas, ''hot spots,'' where the local fields are much larger than the field of an incident electromagnetic wave. The spatial positions of the hot spots vary with the wavelength and polarization of the incident beam. Local near-field spectroscopy of the hot spots is performed using our SNOM. It is shown that the resonance quality-factor of hot spots increases from the visible to the infrared. Giant local optical activity associated with chiral plasmon modes has been obtained. The hot spot's large local fields may result in local, frequency and spatially selective photomodification of percolation films.
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