Scattering at silver-enhanced gold particles inside subwavelength-apertured metallic layers

The scattering and absorption behavior of arbitrarily shaped metallic particles placed inside cylindrical holes in metallic layers is investigated numerically, including material dispersion properties and using rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA). Design parameters resulting in strong scattering are identified for some special geometries. For dielectric and metallic spheres, where analytical solutions of single scattering of a single sphere are known ("MIE" scattering), the numerical methods are verified to yield correct results.