A novel optical effect can be observed in a thin gold foil due to the excitation of surface plasmons which permits a form of all-optical modulation at low pulse rates. Modulated excitation of surface plasmons by infrared photons is shown to couple to several beams at visible-photon energies. The coupling is manifested by the observation of the visible photons being pulsed by the action of the infrared pulses, and by the far field diffraction of the visible beams into concentric rings. When each visible beam also excites surface plasmons, then a quadratic dependence of the visible photon power upon the infrared incident power is measured. The decay of surface plasmons is implicated as the primary cause of thermally induced changes in the foil. The thermal effects dissipate in sufficiently small times so that operation up to the kilohertz range in pulse repetition frequency is obtained. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.