Optical absorption spectra of nanocrystalline cupric oxide CuO samples, obtained using the
converging spherical shock wave procedure, reveal significant spectral weight red-shift as
compared with spectra of single-crystalline CuO samples. In addition, some of these
samples manifest remarkable temperature-dependent resonances near 1.3–1.6 eV. The
minimal model suggested to explain both effects implies the CuO nanoceramic to be a
metastable system of metallic-like nanoscale droplets with Drude optical response,
nucleating in the bare insulating medium under the stimulating influence of the conditions
of the specimen treatment. Simple effective medium theory is shown to provide a
reasonable description of the experimental spectra in terms of the plasmon features due to
the droplet phase.