Observation of a wavelength- and polarization-selective photomodification of silver clusters
Karpov A. V., Popov A. K., Rautian S. G., Safonov V. P. , Slabko V. V. , Shalaev V. M., Shtokman M. I.
It has been observed that a long-lived hole is burnt out of the absorption spectrum of fractal clusters of silver when they are illuminated by a laser pulse. The hole appears in the absorption spectrum of only that linear polarization which is the same as the polarization of the laser pulse. The observed effect is linked with a photomodification of the clusters as they locally absorb light of a given frequency and polarization.