Magnetooptical effects in the metal-dielectric gratings

A significant enhancement of the magnetooptical Faraday effect in the bilayer heterostructure of a thin metallic layer pierced by an array of parallel subwavelength slits and a uniform dielectric layer magnetized perpendicular to its plane, is reported. Calculations, based on the rigorous coupled-wave analysis of Maxwell's equations, demonstrate that in such structures the Faraday effect spectrum has several resonance peaks in the near-infrared range, some of them coinciding with transmittance peaks, providing simultaneous large Faraday rotation enhanced by an order and high transmittance of about 35%. It is shown that the excitation of the quasi-guided TM- and TE-modes in the dielectric layer mostly governs the enhancement of the Faraday rotation. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.