  A method for effective excitation of optical surface waves based on
holography principles has been proposed. For a particular example of excitation
of a plasmonic wave in a dielectric layer on metal the efficiency of proposed
volume holograms in the dielectric layer has been analyzed in comparison with
optimized periodic gratings in the dielectric layer. Conditions when the
holograms are considerably more efficient than the gratings have been found
out. In addition, holograms recorded in two iterations have been proposed and
studied. Such holograms are substantially more efficient than the optimized
periodic gratings for all incidence angles of an exciting Gaussian beam. The
proposed method is universal: it can be extended for efficient excitation of
different types of optical surface waves and optical waveguide modes.
