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.

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We show in a combined study of four-point conductance measurement and tunneling microscopy that surface state conductance induced by one monolayer of Pb on Si(557) can be quasi one dimensional with conductivity values close to typical three-dimensional metals. At a critical temperature of T c 78 K, associated with an order-disorder phase transition and a tenfold superperiodicity along the Pb chains, the system switches from low to high conductance anisotropy, with a semiconductor-insulator transition in the direction perpendicular to the chain structure, while along the chains conductance with a 1=T const temperature dependence was found.