Compound Hertzian chain model for copper-carbon nanocomposites' absorption spectrum

Abstract

The infrared range optical absorption mechanism of carbon-copper composite thin layer coated on the diamond-like carbon buffer layer has been investigated. By consideration of weak interactions between copper nanoparticles in their network, optical absorption is modelled using their coherent dipole behaviour induced by the electromagnetic radiation. The copper nanoparticles in the bulk of carbon are assumed as a chain of plasmonic dipoles, which have coupling resonance. Considering nearest neighbour interactions for this metallic nanoparticles, surface plasmon resonance frequency (ω 0) and coupled plasmon resonance frequency (ω 1) have been computed. The damping rate against wavelength is derived, which leads to the derivation of the optical absorption spectrum in terms of ω 0 and ω 1. The dependency of the absorption peaks to the particle size and the particle mean spacing is also investigated. The absorption spectrum is measured for different Cu-C thin films with various Cu particle size and spacing. The experimental results of absorption are compared with the obtained analytical ones. © 2011 The Institution of Engineering and Technology.