The interaction of surface plasmon polaritons with a silver film edge

A prism coupling arrangement is used to excite surface plasmons at the surface of a thin silver film and a photon scanning tunnelling microscope is used to detect the evanescent field above the silver surface. Excitation of the silver/air mode of interest is performed at lambda1 = 632.8 nm using a tightly focused beam, while the control of the tip is effected by exciting a counter-propagating surface plasmon field at a different wavelength, lambda2 = 543.5 nm, using an unfocused beam covering a macroscopic area. Propagation of the red surface plasmon is evidenced by an exponential tail extending away from the launch site, but this feature is abruptly truncated if the surface plasmon encounters the edge of the silver film--there is no specularly reflected 'beam'. Importantly, the radiative decay of the surface mode at the film edge is observable only at larger tip-sample separations, emphasizing the importance of accessing the mesoscopic regime.