Plasma resonance in granular gallium films deposited on rough NACl and KCl single-crystal surfaces

Granular gallium films deposited in high vacuum on the rough surfaces of NaCl and KCl single crystals maintained at 400°C consist of two layers, in which two resonance bands are excited simultaneously. In isolated grains of the upper layer, a band at the normal electron oscillation frequency ω₀ is excited. As a result of supercooling, the grains are in the liquid state. The gallium plasma frequency calculated from the measured ω₀ and dielectric constants of NaCl and KCl coincides with that obtained by other authors by metallooptic methods. In gallium deposited on room-temperature substrates, only one resonance band is excited, with the interband absorption band superposed on its low-frequency edge.