Jones matrices of perfectly conducting metallic polarizers

We deduce by the monomode modal method the analytical expressions of the transmission and reflection Jones matrices of an infinitely conducting metallic screen periodically pierced by subwavelength holes. The study is restricted to normal incidence and to the case of neglected evanescent fields (far-field), which covers many common cases. When only one nondegenerate mode propagates in cavities, they take identical forms to those of a polarizer, with Fabry-Perot-like spectral resonant factors depending on the bigrating parameters. The isotropic or birefringent properties are then obtained when holes support two orthogonal polarization modes. This basic formalism is finally applied to design compact and efficient metallic half-wave plates. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America