Resonant transmission through a metallic film due to coupled modes

Enhanced transmission and absorption by a silver film with a periodic array of slits has been studied numerically. We find that transmission and absorption peaks coincide and can be attributed to resonances of the structure. We show that these modes can be viewed as a coupling between cavity modes and surface plasmon polaritons. A quantitative analysis shows that the coupled mode can have a cavity mode character or a surface plasmon character depending on the distance to the crossing point of their dispersion relation. Finally, we provide a simple model for the peak transmission value by introducing the concept of radiative yield. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America.