Near-field enhancement and subwavelength imaging in the optical region using a pair of two-dimensional arrays of metal nanospheres

Near-field enhancement and subwavelength imaging properties of a device comprising a coupled pair of two-dimensional arrays of resonant nanospheres are studied. The concept of using two coupled material sheets possessing surface mode resonances for evanescent field enhancement is already well established in the microwave region. We show that the same principles can be applied also in the optical region, where the performance of the resonant sheets can be realized with the use of metallic nanoparticles. We present a design of such structures and study the electric field distributions in the image plane of such a device.