The experimental dielectric function of porous anodic alumina in the infrared region; a comparison with the Maxwell-Garnett model

The infrared reflectance from thin alumina films on metal substrates has a deep minimum for p-polarized light at oblique incidence. This originates from absorption when light couples with a longitudinal optical (LO) phonon mode with k-vector zero. The absorption band is wide for amorphous alumina and is shifted to longer wavelengths for porous oxides compared to non-porous ones. Anodic alumina, prepared in phosphoric acid, with a pore volume fraction of 0.3, has been investigated. The s- and p-polarized reflectance has been measured for selected angles of incidence between and , and the dielectric function has been determined from these measurements. The effective dielectric function has been calculated using Maxwell-Garnett effective-medium theory for a two-component anisotropic medium consisting of air-filled cylindrical pores perpendicular to the surface in an alumina matrix with optical constants of non-porous evaporated alumina. The theoretical and experimental results are in good agreement, which shows that the redshift of the LO mode absorption for p-polarized light can be explained by the presence of pores.