We show that, contrary to the common wisdom, surface plasmon poles are notinvolved in the imaging process in leakage radiation microscopy. Identifyingthe leakage radiation modes directly from a transverse magnetic potential leadsus to reconsider the surface plasmon field and unfold the non-plasmoniccontribution to the image formation. While both contributions interfere in theimaging process, our analysis reveals that the reassessed plasmonic fieldembodies a pole mathematically similar to the usual surface plasmon pole. Thisremoves a long-standing ambiguity associated with plasmonic signals in leakageradiation microscopy.
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