SOLID PLASMA SURFACE OSCILLATIONS .1. CLA SSICAL APPROACH - MAXWELL EQUATIONS IN NONHOMOGENEOUS MEDIA

There are two effects associated with the solid surface:a) alteration of the bulk modes of the infinite solid and b) the appearance of new s urface - specific modes. Most of our knowledge about solid surface (co mposition. ordering. atom dynamics, interaction energy of some molecul es with solids), as well as other properties has been supplied by spec troscopic method; these methods afford basically the variation of the characteristics of an incident particle beam (electrons. photons. ions etc.) as it emerges after the interaction with the solid surface in q uestion. The incident beam employed in spectroscopy interacts with the surface modes and only the knowledge about these modes allows one to transform the variation of beam properties into information regarding the surface This contribution deals with the solid surface plasma osci llation, one of the b) type modes,