Optical constants of gold and silver clusters in the spectral range between 1.5 eV and 4.5 eV

Optical constants of gold and silver clusters of various sizes are determined from measurements of their optical extinction in the range from 1.5 eV to 4.5 eV photon energy. For this purpose, it is shown that the optical extinction by spherical clusters satisfies a Kramers-Kronig relation, yielding the second quantity needed for the determination of the complex dielectric constant ε of the cluster material. The dielectric constant is then obtained applying a generalized Newton-Raphson iteration method on the measured extinction data and the Kramers-Kronig data. The results show a clear dependence on cluster size, and also deviations from bulk dielectric constants in the range of the interband transitions. From the various ε-data, a “bulk” dielectric constant of gold and silver is obtained, which fits the positions of the cluster plasmons more precisely than bulk dielectric constants from the literature.