The Study of the Mercury Interface Using Surface Plasmon Excitation

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Abstract
In this letter we present experimental results on the optical properties of mercury measured by means of the surface plasmon technique. Experiments have been performed on a thick layer of Hg supported on an optically polished Pt base. Our results at the mercury-air interface show–quite convincingly–that the electron density at the surface is larger than in the bulk, as suggested previously from discrepancies observed in the values of the dielectric function of mercury as determined by ellipsometry and normal reflectance and confirmed by surface plasmon excitation at the LiF-Hg interface.