Effects of heat treatment on Ag particle growth and optical properties in Ag/SiO₂ glass composite thin films

Abstract

Small Ag particles were embedded in SiO2 glass thin films by a multi-target sputtering method. The mean diameter of Ag particles in the as-deposited film with 28.0 at. % of Ag was estimated to be 4.4 nm and it was increased to 24.0 nm when the film was heat-treated at 700 °C for 3 h. The diameter was proportional to the cube root of the heat-treatment time, suggesting that the Ag particles grew in the supersaturated solid solution. In the optical absorption spectra of the heat-treated films, the absorption peak due to the surface plasmon resonance of Ag particles was observed about 410 nm. The peak intensity became large and the full width at half maximum of the absorption band was decreased with increasing the diameter of Ag particles.

Kinetics of Ag nanoparticle growth in thick SiO2 films: An in situ optical assessment of Ostwald ripening

“…Thus, the particle growth was considered to take place within the pores of the matrix, which would explain the relatively low activation energy associated with Ag diffusion outside the solid matrix [19]. More in relation to the process taking place for NPs surrounded by a solid host, Tanahashi et al [20] conducted a study on the effects of HT on Ag NP growth for sputtered Ag:SiO 2 nanocomposite films. The authors reported an activation energy in association with Ag particle growth during ripening of 88.1 kJ mol À1 (0.913 eV) [20].…”

Assignments and optical properties of X-ray-induced colour centres in blue and orange radiophotoluminescent silver-activated glasses

“…In addition, recent advances in high-intensity femtosecond (fs) laser pulses have made it possible to fabricate small noble metal particles [9][10][11] such as gold and silver atoms embedded in glasses as well as encode various functional microstructures inside transparent materials [12][13][14]. In particular, such metal nanoparticles embedded in glasses are expected to 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 4 nanoparticles in Ag + -activated phosphate glass without heat treatment was demonstrated for the first time to clarify the origin of a RPL glass dosimeter by highly successive fs laser pulses.…”

Structural and morphological properties of silver nanoparticles–phosphate glass composites

“…Thus, a variety of modifier oxides were introduced into the glass network by different routs like ion exchange [22,23], ion implantation [24], irradiation-assisted processing, i.e. ion [25], electron [18] and laser [26] irradiation, sol-gel synthesis [27], reducing atmosphere treatment [28] or co-sputtering of metal-glass target [29].…”