Effective dielectric constants and spectral density analysis of plasmonic nanocomposites

Cermet or ceramic-metal composite coatings promise great potentials in light harvesting, but the complicated composite structure at the nanoscale induces a design challenge to predict their optical properties. We find that the effective dielectric constants of nanocomposites predicted by finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) simulation results match those of different classical effective medium theories in their respective validity range. However, a precise prediction of the fabricated nanocomposite properties for different filling factors is very challenging. In this work, we extract the spectral density functions in the Bergman representation from the analytical models, numerical simulations, and experimental data of plasmonic nanocomposites. The spectral density functions, which only depend on geometry of the nanocomposite material, provide a unique measure on the contribution of individual and percolated particles inside the nanocomposite. According to the spectral density analysis of measured dielectric constants, the material properties of nanocomposites fabricated by the co-sputtering approach are dominated by electromagnetic interaction among individual metallic particles. While in the case of the nanocomposites fabricated by the multilayer thin film approach, the material properties are dominated by percolated metallic particles inside the dielectric host, as indicated by our FDTD simulation results. This understanding provides new physical insight into the interaction between light and plasmonic nanocomposites.