Bloch states in light transport through a perforated metal

Light transport in a metal with two-dimensional hole arrays is considered. Analytical expressions for a transmission coefficient in periodic, isolated and disordered cases are derived, assuming the existence of waveguide modes transverse tunneling in a two-dimensional plane perpendicular to the traveling direction of light. The one-dimensional case of periodic holes, due to its simplicity, is investigated in detail. In the dilute metal regime, when metal fraction is small, our numerical study of the transmission coefficient of the central diffracted wave indicates the existence of a minimum which is completely independent of an incident wavelength. Further increasing of the metal fraction leads to the unusual monotonic increasing of the central-diffracted-wave transmission. The role of the surface plasmons is discussed