Band-selective optical polarizer based on gold-nanowire plasmonic diffraction gratings

We report a plasmonic diffraction grating device as a new kind of optical polarizer. This simple device consists of periodically distributed gold nanowires on top of a transparent glass substrate and is based on the strong polarization dependence of the particle plasmon resonance of the gold nanowires. A high-efficiency secondary diffraction in the same device enhances the polarization extinction ratio significantly. Linearly polarized spectrum in the red with a bandwidth of 53 nm is selectively picked up from the nonpolarized white light, where a polarization extinction ratio higher than 100 at about 650 nm has been achieved. The idea of plasmonic diffraction grating is important for exploiting new detection and sensor techniques.