Exchange of electric and magnetic resonances in multilayered metal/dielectric nanoplates

In this work, we have experimentally demonstrated that in a rectangular multilayered Ag/SiO2 nanoplate array, electric and magnetic resonances are exchanged at the same frequency simply by changing the polarization of incident light for 90 degrees. Both electric and magnetic resonances originate from localized surface plasmons, and lead to negative permittivity and permeability, respectively. The numerical calculations on electromagnetic fields agree with the experiments. The investigations provide a simple building block for a metamaterial to switch electric and magnetic resonances by external excitation field. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America