From two-beam surface plasmon interaction to femtosecond surface optics and spectroscopy

Abstract New surface-sensitive method of time-resolved studies is proposed. Frequency mixing is demonstrated in degenerate three-wave mixing with two noncollinear beams of femtosecond laser pulses on a metal grating. The observed enhancement of the nonlinear optical response is connected with the synchronised excitation of two surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) waves, their nonlinear interaction and photon generation with the sum frequency. The dependence of this process versus the temporal delay between two laser pulses and the mutual spatial overlapping of the beams on the grating surface are studied. The possibility of direct measurement of the SPP temporal properties using the suggested method is discussed. The possibility of enhancement of a weak signal from SPP is demonstrated. Experiments of this type opens a possibility of development of femtosecond surface plasmon optics and spectroscopy.

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