  We show that electric field confinement in surface plasmon polaritons
propagating at the metal/dielectric interfaces enhances the loss due to Landau
damping and which effectively limits the degree of confinement itself. We prove
that Landau damping and associated with it surface collision damping follow
directly from Lindhard formula for the dielectric constant of free electron gas
Furthermore, we demonstrate that even if all the conventional loss mechanisms,
caused by phonons, electron-electron, and interface roughness scattering, were
eliminated, the maximum attainable degree of confinement and the loss
accompanying it would not change significantly compared to the best existing
plasmonic materials, such as silver.
