  Plasmonic waveguides are a promising platform for integrated nanophotonic
circuits and nanoscale quantum optics. Their use is however often hampered by
the limited propagation length of the guided surface plasmon modes. A detailed
understanding of the influence of the material quality and the waveguide
geometry on the complex mode index is therefore crucial. In this letter, we
present interferometric near-field measurements at telecommunication wavelength
on plasmonic slot waveguides fabricated by focused ion beam milling in single-
and poly-crystalline gold films. We observe a significantly better performance
of the slot waveguides in the single-crystalline gold film for slot widths
below $100\,\mathrm{nm}$. In contrast for larger slot widths, both gold films
give rise to comparable mode propagation lengths. Our experimental observations
indicate that the nature of the dominant loss channel changes with increasing
gap size from Ohmic to leakage radiation. Our experimental findings are
reproduced by three dimensional numerical calculations.
