Quantitative determination of optical transmission through subwavelength slit arrays in Ag films: Role of surface wave interference and local coupling between adjacent slits

Measurement of the transmitted intensity from a coherent monomode light source through a series of subwavelength slit arrays in Ag films, with varying array pitch and number of slits, demonstrates enhancement suppression by factors of as much as 6 9 when normalized to the transmission efficiency of an isolated slit. Pronounced minima in the transmitted intensity are observed at array pitches corresponding to SPP, 2 SPP, and 3 SPP, where SPP is the wavelength of the surface plasmon polariton SPP . The position of these minima arises from destructive interference between incident propagating waves and pi-phase-shifted SPP waves. Increasing the number of slits to four or more does not increase appreciably the per-slit transmission intensity. A simple interference model fits well the measured transmitted intensity profile.