Structural and plasmonic studies of Ag nanoparticles in silica glass hosts

Silica glassy materials doped with Ag were prepared through sol gel route. The structural studies of the prepared samples showed an icosahedral morphology of the nanocrystals formed along with spherical morphology. The XRD and TEM data confirmed the formation of silver nanoparticles of size between 20 and 22nm. The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of silver nanoparticles with spherical morphology was studied with the discrete dipole approximation . The shape and size effects of the nanoparticles can induce distinctive features of the SPR spectrum. It has been shown that such effects can induce peak intensity enhancement, wavelength shift and spectral broadening of the SPR spectra of the nanoparticles. The results obtained depend on the existence of highly localized plasmonic oscillations. An attempt has also been made to calculate the van der Waals force between nanoparticles.