Plasmon surface polaritons that are launched at an index step from a Ag/dielectric coating/air to a Ag/air interface interfere with the evanescent waves of the driving photon field. The resulting intensity distribution on the Ag surface can be imaged by the recently developed surface plasmon microscopy. We show that it is thus possible to derive the real part as well as the imaginary part of the complex surface plasmon wave vector.
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