Resonant photon tunneling via surface plasmon polaritons through one-dimensional metal-dielectric metamaterials.

We report resonant photon tunneling (RPT) through one-dimensional metamaterials consisting of alternating layers of metal and dielectric. RPT via a surface plasmon polariton state permits evanescent light waves with large wavenumbers to be conveyed through the metamaterial. This is the mechanism for sub-wavelength imaging recently demonstrated with a super-lens. Furthermore, we find that the RPT peak is shifted from the reflectance dip with increasing the number of Al layers, indicating that the shift is caused by the losses in the RPT.