Abstract

We report polarization tomography experiments on metallic nanohole arrays with square and hexagonal symmetry. As a main result we find that a fully polarized input beam is partly depolarized after transmission through a nanohole array. This loss of polarization coherence is found to be anisotropic; i.e., it depends on the polarization state of the input beam. The depolarization is ascribed to a combination of two factors: (i) the nonlocal response of the array as a result of surface-plasmon propagation and (ii) the non-plane-wave nature of a practical input beam.

© 2005 Optical Society of America

Analytic model of optical depolarization in square and hexagonal nanohole arrays

Erwin Altewischer, Martin P. van Exter, and J. P. Woerdman
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 22(8) 1731-1736 (2005)

Polarization control of optical transmission of a periodic array of elliptical nanoholes in a metal film

Jill Elliott, Igor I. Smolyaninov, Nikolay I. Zheludev, and Anatoly V. Zayats
Opt. Lett. 29(12) 1414-1416 (2004)

Surface plasmon generation and light transmission by isolated nanoholes and arrays of nanoholes in thin metal films

Shih-Hui Chang, Stephen K. Gray, and George C. Schatz
Opt. Express 13(8) 3150-3165 (2005)

Role of spatial coherence in polarization tomography

A. Aiello and J. P. Woerdman
Opt. Lett. 30(13) 1599-1601 (2005)

Time-resolved polarization decoherence in metal hole arrays with correlated photons

Peter S. Lee, Martin P. van Exter, and J. P. Woerdman
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 23(1) 134-138 (2006)