Stimulating surface plasmon polaritons over patterned aluminum film by terahertz radiation

In order to investigate the key properties of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), a new kind of device based on sub-wavelength aluminum structures (SWASs) have been designed and fabricated with respect to incident radiation in terahertz (THz) range. The device is composed of two layered micro-nano-structures and the utilized substrates are silicon materials in current stage. One silicon substrate is sputtered directly by a thin aluminum film, which is further patterned to shape functioned micro-nano-structures. The THz transmission performances of the devices have been measured according to common optical approaches. The experimental results show that some extraordinary transmission peaks are clearly presented in terahertz transmittance spectrum, which is inconsistent with the classical aperture theory of Bethe. The effects of the developed SPPs are discussed carefully according to the discovered phenomena about the extraordinary optical transmission (EOT).