A series of discontinuous and semi-continuous silver island films were prepared with sputtering technique and vaporizing method, respectively. The plasmon resonance absorption in visible region, critical percolation infrared transmittance and the fractal dimension of two types of samples were investigated. Only discontinuous vaporized Ag films show resonant plasmon absorption. For sputtered samples, both discontinuous and semi-continuous films show plasmon absorption in visible region. The value of fractal dimension, critical exponent and critical percolation infrared transmittance (D-f, nu, T-c) are measured to be (1.56, 1.26, 60%) for sputtered Ag films and (1.60, 1.14, 15%) for vaporized samples. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.