H. Hofmeister et al., Oriented prolate silver particles in glass - Characteristics of novel dichroic polarizers, NANOSTR MAT, 12(1-4), 1999, pp. 207-210
Nanosized spherical silver particles in glass, introduced by an ion exchang
e plus annealing procedure, have been deformed at elevated temperatures to
uniformly arranged prolate spheroidal particles by homogeneous glass stretc
hing at constant stress. Thereupon, the optical absorption band splits into
two bands according to the long and short mes of the deformed particles. S
ince colour and polarizing effect of these particles may widely be controll
ed by variation of their aspect ratio this technique enables the fabricatio
n of novel dichroic polarizers with spectral characteristics throughout the
whole visible range. Local thermally induced shape relaxation of deformed
particles makes colour structuring possible on the micrometer scale. Charac
terisation of these materials by optical absorption spectroscopy and transm
ission electron microscopy demonstrates the influence of deformation and sh
ape relaxation on their spectral and polarizing properties. (C) 1999 Acta M
etallurgica Inc.