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A numerical analysis of surface plasmon dispersion, propagation, and localization on smooth lossy films is presented. Particular attention is given to determining wavelength-dependent behavior of thin Ag slab waveguides embedded in a symmetric environment. Rather than considering Ag as a damped free electron gas, the metal is defined by the experimentally determined optical constants of Johnson and Christy and Palik. As in free electron gas models, analytic dispersion results indicate a splitting of plasmon modes—corresponding to symmetric and antisymmetric field distributions—as film thickness is decreased below . However, unlike free electron gas models, the surface plasmon wave vector remains finite at resonance with the antisymmetric-field plasmon converging to a pure photon mode for very thin films. In addition, allowed excitation modes are found to exist between the bound and radiative …