GIANT STOKES FIELDS ON SEMICONTINUOUS METAL-FILMS

The local electric fields on a semicontinuous metal film are shown to experience giant fluctuations in the visible and infrared spectral ran ges when the dissipation in metallic grains is small. The field fluctu ations result in strongly enhanced Raman scattering. The scattered loc al fields at the Stakes frequency are concentrated in sharp well-separ ated peaks and are enhanced up to giant values, similar to 10(14), tha t exceed by many orders of magnitude the average enhancement, similar to 10(6). This opens a fascinating possibility for Raman scattering sp ectroscopy of single molecules on a semicontinuous metal film. A devel oped scaling theory for surface-enhanced Raman scattering from a semic ontinuous film successfully explains the experimental observations. (C ) 1998 Optical Society of America.