Determination of dielectric permittivity and thickness of a metal layer from a surface plasmon resonance experiment.

In this paper we present a fast method for the determination of dielectric permittivity epsilon= -epsilon(r) + iepsilon(i) and thickness d of metal layers from surface plasmon resonance reflection curves. The method is an iteration process using starting parameters derived directly from a reflection curve. The method is tested with simulations and is applied to experimental results. Accuracies reached for silver layers between 25-100 nm and gold layers between 40-75 nm are better than: epsilon(r) +/-1%; epsilon(i) +/-13% and d +/-8%.