Dispersion and Damping of a Two-Dimensional Plasmon in a Metallic Surface-State Band

We have studied, for the first time, the energy and the linewidth dispersion of a plasmon in a dense two-dimensional electron system in a metallic surface-state band on a silicon surface. As expected from the considerably high effective density and long Fermi wavelength of the system, the plasmon energy dispersion exhibited an excellent agreement with the nearly free-electron theory. However, in a small wave number region below the Landau edge, we have observed an anomalous linewidth dispersion which nearly free-electron theories do not predict.