Nowadays, there is an especial interest in replacing the old stained
glass windows inside churches and cathedrals as part of the renovation
of cultural heritage [1–3]. This activity has direct consequences in the
domain of contemporary art because of the research of a pure and
really strong color without alteration of the glass transparency:
Plasmonics, allows to describe characteristics of these wanted effects
in order to optimize modern methods of glass manufacturing [4,5]. It
is difficult to find appropriate natural samples allowing the theoretical
validation of optical properties and consequently the evaluation of
experimental deviations [6,7]. We detail in this paper an original investigation
of the optical properties for silver or copper nanoparticles
(NPs) embedded in a classical silicate glass. We have investigated
two colored samples obtained with a staining method to show the
colouring influence of the metallic NPs. The optical absorption of this
kind of glass can be evaluated by two main responsible contributions:
the natural metallic photo-absorption typically located in the ultraviolet
range and the Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) due to the
presence of metallic NPs embedded in a glass medium [8,9].