On the effective permittivity of silver-insulator nanocomposites

Abstract

The Bruggeman formalism provides an estimate of the effective permittivity of a composite material comprising two constituent materials, with each constituent material being composed of electrically small particles. When one of the constituent materials is silver and the other is an insulating material, the Bruggeman estimate of the effective permittivity of the composite exhibits resonances with respect to volume fraction that are not physically plausible.