Surface-Plasmon-One-Electron Decay and its Observation in Photoemission

Abstract
Evidence for the decay of surface plasmons into one-electron excitations has been obtained in photoemission measurements from a slightly roughened surface of aluminum. A simple theory has been developed which explains the resultant photoyield in terms of both the drop in reflectance resulting from roughness-aided plasmon coupling, and the relative penetration depth of the fields associated with these excited plasmons.