Light absorption by island metal films in the infrared range

This study reports on theoretical investigations of the electric and magnetic absorption of small metallic particles as functions of their shape, with the wavelength of incident e/m radiation assumed to be much greater than the size of the particles. A general expression for the absorption cross-section is derived for the cases when both the bulk and surface electron scattering are dominant. In the IR-region the absorption cross-section is shown to be extremely sensitive to the shape of particles; for particles of a constant volume, yet different in shape, it can change by several orders of magnitude. It is also shown that under dominant surface scattering the optical conductivity of an asymmetric particle is described by a tensor whose principal values are calculated for the ellipsoidal shape. The expression obtained for the electric and magnetic absorption renders ground to infer that the ratio of the contributions due to these absorption mechanisms greatly depends on the shape of particles and polarization of light.