High efficient optical focusing of a zone plate composed of metal/dielectric multilayer.

We numerically investigate the optical field enhancement by a metal/dielectric multilayered zone plate. The optical field enhancement at the focal point of a zone plate originates not only from surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs)-assisted diffraction process along the propagation direction of incident light, but also from multiple scattering and coupling of surface plasmons (SPs) along the metal/dielectric multilayer films. By comparing multilayered zone plates to a conventional monolayered zone plate, we present the effects associated with the number of building blocks and different dielectric materials in the building block on the efficiency of the transmission.