Leakage interferences applied to surface plasmon analysis.

We report the experimental combination of leakage radiation microscopy with a Young slit experiment to address the spatial coherence properties of surface waves. We applied this method to measurements of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). The relationship between the spatial decay and interference contrast allows us to extract the degree of coherence. In a second step, we investigate the coherence properties of the plasmon in the weak coupling regime between fluorophores and metallic surfaces. Finally, a method is proposed to extract the propagation length of SPPs in a large variety of systems.