How holes can obscure the view: suppressed transmission through an ultrathin metal film by a subwavelength hole array.

If a metal film, thick enough to be totally opaque, is perforated by tiny subwavelength holes in an orderly fashion, the transmission will be enhanced extraordinarily [T. W. Ebbesen, Nature (London) 391, 667 (1998)]. Here, we investigate the transmission through an ultrathin semitransparent Au film with a square array of subwavelength holes and observe the opposite behavior: less light is transmitted through the pierced metal compared to the closed film.