Dispersion and Damping of Gold Surface Plasmon

High-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy was used to investigate the surface plasmon dispersion in (111)-oriented Au films grown on Cu(111). The measured dispersion of the plasmon mode was positive, as found for Ag. The centroid of the induced charge associated to the plasmon field lies well inside the jellium edge. The damping relation of the Au surface plasmon presented a critical wave vector of 0.11 angstrom(-1). For higher values of the parallel momentum transfer, the line width of Au surface plasmon considerably increased as a consequence of the opening of a new decay channel via single-particle transitions.