Abstract

Recently, Ebbesen et al.¹ reported unusually high transmission of light through a sub-wavelength metallic hole array. This unusual effect was attributed to the resonant coupling between the incident beam and the excited surface plasmon polariton modes and it was also modeled by the propagation of Bloch waves using dynamical diffraction theory. In this work we study the resonant nature of the effect, particularly the spatial extent of the resonance.

© 2002 Optical Society of America