Brewster angle technique to study metal nanoparticle distributions in dielectric matrices

Abstract

We report experimental results obtained by means of the Brewster angle technique on samples constituted by Pb and Sn nanoparticles embedded in an amorphous SiO matrix. The extended comparison with different effective medium models gives clear indications on (i) the structural composition of the samples and (ii) the spatial distribution of the metallic particles in these systems, pointing to a quasi-two-dimensional arrangement.