Large negative Goos-Hanchen shift at metal surfaces

It has been previously established that for p-polarized light incident onto a semi-infinite absorbing medium, large negative Goos-Han-chen (GH) shifts can be expected in the case of weak absorption at incidence close to the Brewster angle. The effect has been demonstrated for certain semiconducting media at optical frequencies. Here we point out that similar phenomenon can take place for strongly reflecting and attenuating medium such as metal at IR frequencies, with large incident angles close to grazing incidence. Moreover, unlike the previously-studied case with semiconductors, the Brewster angle in the present case with metals plays an insignificant role in the possible hindrance of the observation of such large negative shifts. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.