Extraordinary transmission and giant magneto-optical transverse Kerr effect in plasmonic nanostructured films

Abstract

We predict a significant enhancement of the magneto-optical transverse Kerr effect when a smooth magnetic dielectric film is covered with a thin noble metal layer perforated with subwavelength slit arrays. The relative intensity change can be as large as 50%. The Kerr effect increase is due to the magnetization-induced change of the phase velocity of the resonantly excited surface plasmons. It can be used as an efficient tool for surface plasmons detection.