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Transmission resonances through aperiodic arrays of subwavelength apertures

Nature volume 446, pages 517–521 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Resonantly enhanced light transmission through periodic subwavelength aperture arrays perforated in metallic films1 has generated significant interest because of potential applications in near-field microscopy, photolithography, displays, and thermal emission2. The enhanced transmission was originally explained by a mechanism where surface plasmon polaritons (collective electronic excitations in the metal surface) mediate light transmission through the grating1,3. In this picture, structural periodicity is perceived to be crucial in forming the transmission resonances. Here we demonstrate experimentally that, in contrast to the conventional view, sharp transmission resonances can be obtained from aperiodic aperture arrays. Terahertz transmission resonances are observed from several arrays in metallic films that exhibit unusual local n-fold rotational symmetries, where n = 10, 12, 18, 40 and 120. This is accomplished by using quasicrystals with long-range order, as well as a new type of ‘quasicrystal approximates’ in which the long-range order is somewhat relaxed. We find that strong transmission resonances also form in these aperiodic structures, at frequencies that closely match the discrete Fourier transform vectors in the aperture array structure factor. The shape of these resonances arises from Fano interference4 of the discrete resonances and the non-resonant transmission band continuum related to the individual holes5. Our approach expands potential design parameters for aperture arrays that are aperiodic but contain discrete Fourier transform vectors, and opens new avenues for optoelectronic devices.

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Figure 1: THz electric field transmission, T(ν ), through random apertures in stainless steel foils.
Figure 2: THz time-domain spectroscopy studies of stainless steel foils perforated with apertures patterned in 2D quasicrystal structures.
Figure 3: Design and THz time-domain spectroscopy studies of stainless steel foils perforated with 2D aperiodic aperture arrays.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Army Research Office and the SYNERGY programme at the University of Utah.

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Author notes

  1. Tatsunosuke Matsui and Amit Agrawal: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department,,

    Tatsunosuke Matsui & Z. Valy Vardeny

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA,

    Amit Agrawal & Ajay Nahata

Authors
  1. Tatsunosuke Matsui
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  2. Amit Agrawal
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  4. Z. Valy Vardeny
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Correspondence to Ajay Nahata or Z. Valy Vardeny.

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This file contains Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Figures 1-3 with Legends, Supplementary Tables 1-2 and additional references. (PDF 559 kb)

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Matsui, T., Agrawal, A., Nahata, A. et al. Transmission resonances through aperiodic arrays of subwavelength apertures. Nature 446, 517–521 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05620

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