We present a quantum mechanical calculation of the diamagnetic optical response of metallic ultrathin films. The study shows that in the optical response of ultrathin films (less than 100 Å in thickness), there exists an oscillatory dependence on the film thickness, and the period of the oscillation corresponds to one or a few monolayers. We show that the oscillation can be attributed to the intraband fluctuations of the valence electrons in discrete energy states. For comparison, we present experimental results on the infrared (
= 9.2 µm) optical reflectance of Al ultrathin films of thickness 5-112 Å, which exhibit experimentally the predicted oscillations.
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