Re: Smooth Ag thin films


"Uncle Al" <UncleAl0@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:44736056.1AEB4678@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


How do you get clean smooth glass? Scratch/dig for glass is in
microns not nanometers. Would freshly cleaved mica be better?

Silver is reactive, especially toward reduced sulfur species.
Tolylbenzotriazole will lay down a monomolecular passivating film from
dilute solution, but then it isn't a naked surface.



Hmmm, my idea was that the distance between the scratches in glass is so
large that I will have a "big" area to use for the experiments (I will use a
SNOM). People that have already done similar things tell me that the
roughness of the glass is < 1 nm (again of course away from the scratches).
For what regards the passivation it is a good suggestion, I will think about
it. I am pretty sure that a monolayer will not affect the properties of the
surface plasmon, which penetrates for a considerable fraction of the
wavelength (at least 0.1 lambda I would say) inside both the glass and the
metal; in fact the plasmon is not excited well in Ag films thinner than
25-30 nm, which shows that there is too much leaking out in this case.

G.


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