Optical and structural characterization of silver islands films on glass substrates

Metal island films (MIFs) of Ag on glass substrates were fabricated by the e-beam evaporation technique. The dependence of the surface plasmon (SP) absorption properties on the deposition mass thickness and substrate temperature was quantified. The structural and optical characterization of the MIFs, obtained using spectrometry, grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) evidences the evolution of SP characteristics depending on the fabrication parameters: the red shift of the absorption peaks with the increase of deposition thickness accompanied by peak widening and the blue-shift of peaks with the increase of deposition temperature followed by the peak narrowing. These findings were explained by the differences in the concentration, shape and size of the obtained silver islands.