Generation of Traveling Surface Plasmon Waves by Free-Electron Impact

The injection of a beam of free 50 keV electrons into an unstructured gold surface creates a highly localized source of traveling surface plasmons with spectrum centered around 1.8 eV. The plasmons were detected by a controlled decoupling into light with a grating at a distance from the excitation point. The dominant contribution to the plasmon generation appears to come from the recombination of d-band holes created by the electron beam excitation.