Optical properties of metallo-dielectric microspheres in opal structures

We report the fabrication of opal structure using metallo-dielectric silica microspheres. Mono-dispersed silica microspheres were coated with silver using an electrode-less wet-plating technique. Thin slabs of opal were obtained by assembling the silver-coated microspheres between two glass plates using a forced-packing method. The optical properties of the resulting opal structure were studied in the infrared range. Good agreement is obtained with the predictions of a multiple scattering approach, provided that the silver layer is modelled as a silver composite.