title: Exact surface-plasmon polariton solutions at a lossy interface.
abstract: Making use of a rigorous electromagnetic treatment, we demonstrate that the approximate results that are customarily employed for the analysis of a plasmon field at a metal/dielectric boundary are incorrect even in some situations in which they are supposed to hold. We show further that a new type of surface-plasmon solution exists that does not follow from the standard approximate analysis. Energy-flow considerations indicate that the new polariton is a backward-propagating surface wave, as encountered in manmade structures. Our results are likely to find applications in metal/semiconductor and metamaterial plasmonics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Mathematics, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland. andreas.norrman@uef.fi
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Norrman
authors.forename: Tero
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Setälä
authors.forename: Ari T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Friberg