Tailoring optical transmission via the arrangement of compound subwavelength hole arrays

The transmission properties of light through metal films with compound periodic subwavelength hole arrays is numerically investigated by using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The sharp dips in the transmission bands, together with the suppression of surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) (0, 1) peak, are found when two square holes in every unit cell are arranged asymmetrically along the polarization direction of the incident light. However, the shape of transmission spectra is not sensitive to the symmetry if the holes are arranged perpendicular to the propagation direction of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). The physics origin of these phenomena is explained qualitatively by the phase resonance of SPPs.