Physica B 325 (2003) 86–91 Blue shift of plasmon resonance in Cu and Ag ion-exchanged and annealed soda-lime glass: an optical absorption study D. Manikandan a , S. Mohan a, *, P. Magudapathy b , K.G.M. Nair b a Raman School of Physics, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry 605 014, India b Materials Science Division, Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 603 102, India Received 7 June 2002 Abstract Metal nanocluster composite glasses are formed by the ion-exchange technique of dipping the host matrix in the respective metal salt bath of interest. These ion-exchanged glasses are then annealed in air for 1h at different temperatures. The optical absorption spectra of the ion-exchanged and annealed samples confirmed the presence of nanosizedmetalclustersembeddedinsidetheglassmatrix.Withincreaseoftheannealingtemperature,theabsorption peak of the Cu and Ag nanoparticles showed a blue shift which can be attributed to the change in particle size and volume fraction. Annealing of the sequential Cu and Ag ion-exchanged soda-lime glass resulted in the formation of complex metal nanocluster composite glass, with the optical spectra exhibiting two peaks corresponding to the surface plasmon resonance of both metals. r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 85.42.+m; 85.60.me; 81.15.Lm; 78.90.+t Keywords: Blue shift; Plasmon resonance; Ion exchange; Annealing; Soda-lime glass; Optical absorption 1. Introduction Composite glasses containing dilute nanoclus- ters of transition meals are most promising materials due to their nonlinear optical property and high potential figure of merit for switching devices. An enormous interest has grown in the developmentofnewpreparationandcharacteriza- tionmethodsofthesemetalnanoclustercomposite glasses as they serve as key materials for the fabrication of photonic devices [1–3]. Formation ofcompositeglassescontainingmetalcolloidswas done earlier by direct implantation of metals into the dielectric matrix or by sequential ion exchange and ion irradiation of the metal-doped silicate glasses.Themostusedtoolfortheinvestigationof such colloidal systems is the optical absorption spectroscopy, where the surface plasmon reso- nance (SPR) exhibited by the embedded metal nanoclusters give information on the composition andparticlesize,sincethepositionandshapeofthe SPRbanddependsonthestructureanddistribution of the clusters as well as on the dielectric functions of metal and matrix forming the composite. *Correspondingauthor.Tel.:+91-0413655177x382;fax:+91- 0413655265. E-mail address: s mohan@lycos.com (S. Mohan). 0921-4526/02/$-see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0921-4526(02)01453-9