Abstract

In random metal-dielectric films where the metal coverage of the dielectric substrate is close to the percolation threshold, disorder-induced localization of plasmons occurs, resultingin hugefluctuations of local fields.¹ One of the most interesting theoretical predictions for such percolation films is that nonlinear light scattering at the nth frequency harmonic HCO of an incident beam can be significantly enhanced and is characterized by a broad, nearly isotropic angular distribution.² According to theory, this effect, which was denoted in" as percolation-enhanced nonlinear scattering (PENS), is caused by the huge local-field fluctuations associated with the localized plasmons. Here we experimentally verify the existence of the PENS effect by measurements of the second har-monie generation from semicontinuous and continuous gold films.

© 2001 Optical Society of America