Direct Observation of a Transition of a Surface Plasmon Resonance from a Photonic Crystal Effect

Manipulation of electromagnetic waves below wavelength scale is vital in broad disciplinary applications of photonics and has been a challenging task for decades. Recent demonstration of extraordinary transmission of light through an array of metallic nanostructures has opened up a new avenue to subwavelength photonics [1,2]. This fascinating phenomenon, understood as resonant excitation of surface plasmons (SPs) at the metaldielectric interface, has been extensively explored in a wide spectral range, and is very promising in nanolithography, near-field microscopy, integrated photonic devices,