Extraordinary transmission beyond the cut-off through sub-λλ annular aperture arrays

It was recently established that coaxial nano-aperture arrays perforated in optically thick silver films exhibit an extraordinary transmission in the visible range thanks to a guided mode. However this mode has a cut-off wavelength beyond which the transmission dramatically decreases. We propose here a cascaded structure that is shown to act as a high quality spectral filter in the visible range (finesse up to 200). It is also found that the transmission is enhanced by a factor of 150 for specific wavelengths. This kind of cascaded nano-structured metallic layers offers many promising applications in nano-photonics such as the integration of functionalities for optical signal processing. It opens up the path for the conception of a new generation of integrated components based on metallo-dielectric structures that can be easily tailored as tunable devices.