Metal optics near the plasma frequency

Standard optical textbooks neglect the fact that light reflected from a metal surface can excite longitudinal plasma waves inside the metal. But the development of high frequency light sources (synchrotron) and sensitive optical techniques force the inclusion of plasma waves in the analysis of optical experiments at metal surfaces and thin metal layers. In this monograph a slight extension of the techniques available to everybody working in the field is shown to facilitate the inclusion of plasma waves in optics. Particular care is taken to reduce the usually rather sophisticated approaches to simpler results that are of immediate applicability to the analysis of experimental data. Chapters 2 and 3 are based on a slight extension of the Drude model, the ''hydrodynamic approximation'' for the response of the metal electrons. A variety of other treatments of nonlocal optics in spatially dispersive systems as put forward in recent years is analysed in chapters 4 and 5