Polarization effects in metallic films perforated with a bidimensional array of subwavelength rectangular holes

TL;DR

This paper investigates how polarization affects light transmission through metallic films with rectangular subwavelength holes, revealing polarization dependence unlike circular holes, and proposes a new polarizer design for potential technological applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates polarization dependence in rectangular hole arrays, contrasting with circular holes, and introduces a novel polarizer leveraging this effect.

Findings

Polarization affects transmission in rectangular hole arrays.

Circular holes show polarization-independent transmission.

Proposed a new polarizer based on rectangular hole arrays.

Abstract

For several years, periodical arrays of subwavelength cylindrical holes in thin metallic layers have taken a crucial importance in the context of the results reported by Ebbesen et al, on particularly attractive optical transmission experiments. It had been underlined that the zeroth order transmission pattern does not depend on the polarization of the incident light at normal incidence. In the present paper, we show that it is not the case for rectangular holes, by contrast to the case of circular holes. In this context, we suggest a new kind of polarizer that present the advantages brought by the original Ebbesen devices. Assuming the recent technological interest for these kinds of metallic gratings, such a kind of polarizer could lead to new technological applications.