Tuning the extraordinary transmission in a metallic/dielectric CDC hole array by changing the temperature

Tunable extraordinary transmission via changing temperature of a porous metallic layer on top of a thin layer of dielectric strontium titanate (STO) was studied. The metallic layer has a through-hole array and each hole has a circular converging-diverging channel (CDC) shape, which induces the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) and then results in a controllable extraordinary optical transmission in the terahertz (THz) frequency range. We used a three-dimensional (3D) finite element method to analyze the transmission characteristics of the structure. Location and magnitude of the transmission peaks can be adjusted by hole size, converging angle, and thicknesses of metal and STO layers. Remarkably, the suggested structure presents a strong transmission dependency on temperature, which offers a new approach to actively and externally tune the transmission. This new design could lead to a family of temperature-sensitive devices working in the THz frequency range, promising in many applications including photonics, nanolithography, imaging, and sensing.