Surface electromagnetic waves at the diffused plasma-vacuum interface produced by ultrashort laser pulses

Multilayer optical techniques used in the theory of surface polaritons are applied for the investigation of surface electromagnetic waves propagating along the diffused plasma-vacuum interface with arbitrary fixed density pro files, Collisional and resonance damping is taken into consideration. We ne glect the spatial dispersion of dielectric function. Plasma density profile s with a pedestal in the subcritical region are considered. The conditions of surface plasmons direct excitation predicted by simple estimations are f ound by numerical simulations.