Isolation and one-way effects in diffraction on dielectric gratings with plasmonic inserts

Diffraction of plane waves on dielectric gratings with planar plasmonic inserts is studied with the emphasis put on the anomalous selectivity of diffraction orders. It is shown that some formally propagating orders can be suppressed within a wide frequency range. The effect of suppression is more general than the isolation effect observed earlier in zero-permittivity and (near-)zero-index slabs and sensitive to the frequency dependent peculiarities of the field distribution within the plasmonic layer. It is required that the real part of the permittivity of this layer is positive less than unity. The wideband features of the suppression effect, i.e., one-way transmission and diffraction-free reflection are demonstrated. Narrowband selectivity effects are also studied. The structures suggested can be used for extending the potential of technologies that are based on multibeam operation and field transformation. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America