Polarization-dependent transmission through subwavelength anisotropic aperture arrays

The use of polarized light as an approach to further control the extraordinary transmission (EOT) through nanostructured metallic films has recently gained attention. In this work, it is shown that aperture shape and orientation not only determine the intensity of the polarized light emitted, corroborating the previous work of others, but also can be used to spectrally tune the relative peak intensity of surface plasmon polaritons modes. The high extinction ratio of high aspect ratio apertures lends itself to the creation of micron-sized structures that emit at different wavelengths depending upon the orientation of linearly polarized incident light. This has many potential applications including the prospect of color shifting pixels for high definition television (HDTV) and thin film electroluminescent (TFEL) devices as well as novel polarization mode dispersion control components. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.