Abstract

As a subarea of surface physics, surface polaritons are nowadays attracting much attention. Nonlinear optical phenomena involving surface polaritons have been extensively studied in recent years, and most attention has been confined to the investigations of the enhancement of second harmonic generation (SHG)^1-3 by a surface plasmon wave (SPW). To explore thoroughly the second-order nonlinearity on the interface, we report the first experimental research on the enhancement of sum-frequency generation (SFG) by SPWs in Kretschmann’s configuration shown in Fig. 1.

© 1986 Optical Society of America