Optical responses in dilute composites are controlled through the local dielectric resonance of metallic clusters. We consider two located metallic clusters close to each other with admittances ε1 and ε2. Through varying the difference admittance ratio η[= （ε2 - ε0）/（ε1 - ε0）], we find that their optical responses are determined by the local resonance. There is a blueshift of absorption peaks with the increase of η- Simultaneously, it is known that the absorption peaks will be redshifted by enlarging the cluster size. By adjusting the nano-metallic cluster geometry, size and admittances, we can control the positions and intensities of absorption peaks effectively. We have also deduced the effective linear optical responses of three-component composites εe=ε0 （1＋∑^n n=1[（γn1＋ηγn2）/（ε0（s-sn））]） and the sum rule of cross sections：∑^n n=1（γn1＋ηγn2）=Nh1＋Nh2,, where Nh1and Nh2 are the numbers of εl and ε2 bonds along the electric field, respectively. These results may be beneficial to the study of surface plasmon resonances on a nanometre scale.
A simple three-level system is proposed to produce high index of refraction with zero absorption in an Er^3＋-doped yttrium aluminium garnet （YAG） crystal, which is achieved for a probe field between the excited state 4I13/2 and ground state 4I15/2 by adjusting a strong coherent driving field between the upper excited state 4I11/2 and 4I15/2. It is found that the changes of the frequency of the coherent driving field and the concentration of Er^3＋ ions in the YAG crystal can maximize the index of refraction accompanied by vanishing absorption. This result could be useful for the dispersion compensation in fibre communication, laser particle acceleration, high precision magnetometry and so on.
