Propagation of light in metallic nanowire arrays: Finite-difference time-domain studies of silver cylinders

Finite-difference time-domain studies of a variety of silver cylinder arrays with nanometer-scale diameters (nanowires) interacting with light are presented. We show how reasonable estimates of scattering and absorption cross sections for metallic nanoscale objects can be obtained from such calculations. We then study the explicit time-domain behavior of both simple linear chains of such cylinders, as well as more elaborate arrays. A funnel-like configuration is found to be one interesting possibility for achieving propagation of light through features confined in one dimension to less than 100 nm.