Abstract
The method of frustrated total reflection is used to optically excite electromagnetic surface plasma waves (SPW) in two different layered structures. The first system studied has two films (Mg-Ag) between glass and air, and the second has three films (Ag-Mg-Ag) between glass and air. Surface roughness of the evaporated Mg films is found to increase with film thickness and this roughness has a pronounced effect on the SPW resonances. A cermet is imagined to form at the Mg-Ag interface, and its effective optical constants can be evaluated using the Maxwell Garnett theory. If this cermet is treated as a separate layer in the structure, then good agreement is found with the experimentally observed resonances. A calculation of the Poynting vector field, current distributions, and surface charge densities, resulting from an incident monochromatic plane wave, shows the different modes of oscillation corresponding to each resonance.
- Received 3 January 1977
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.16.1297
©1977 American Physical Society