Modeling the Absorbtion of Silver-doped glass

[Physgirl 101]

Hi all,

I'm doing some theory for my research, and I'm stuck! I'm trying to figure out why the absorption spectrum peaks at 420nm for silver nanoparticles. I know that this is expected for silver--I understand conceptually what's going on... but am trying to show it mathematically.

I'm trying to mathematically show why light of a given frequency (which matches the resonance frequency of the material) causes an increase in absorbance, and why/how this absorbance band broadens with nanoparticle size... I know the plasmon resonant frequency, Mie theory, and polarization all have something to do with it, but can't make the jump to modeling.

Does anyone know a good resource that I can check out to better understand how to model this? (forgive me--I'm an experimentalist-in-training)


Thanks!
-Physgirl

 

[conway]

I am interested in these kind of questions and had a couple of discussions in this forum over the last year which petered out with no real resolution. Probably the conversion of visible light to thermal energy is the area that interests me the most. Is this your problem? What I've been trying to do is put together a picture of interaction with lattice vibrations (phonons I suppose) whereby the interaction is strongest when the wavelengths match. It's kind of a Compton effect except with phonons instead of electrons. I'm wondering if this is ultimately the primary mechanism for absorption.