Magneto-optical features and extraordinary light transmission through perforated metal films filled with liquid crystals

Abstract

We calculate the effective dielectric tensor of a metal film penetrated by cylindrical holes filled with a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) whose director is parallel to the film and can be controlled by a static magnetic field whose direction can be rotated in an arbitrary direction in the plane of the film. We consider both randomly distributed holes (using a Maxwell-Garnett approximation) and a square lattice of holes (using a Fourier technique). Both the holes and the lattice constant of the square lattice are assumed small compared to the wavelength. The films are found to exhibit extraordinary light transmission at special frequencies, ωsp, related to the surface plasmon (SP) resonances of the composite film, which depends on the direction of the applied magnetic field. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.