  For the diffraction of an incident plane electromagnetic wave by a slotted
metallic film, the previous analytical calculation for a single slot [Technical
Phys. 50, 1076 (2005)] is generalized into a model for an arbitrary linear
array of slots with variable slot width, slot separation and slot dielectric
material. The advantage as well as the effectiveness of the generalized model
presented in this paper are best described by enabling calculation of a
continuous spatial distribution of an electromagnetic field by inverting a
small discrete coefficient matrix spanned by both the slot index and the
slot-eigenmode index for a set of linear equations. In comparisons with
well-known plane-wave and finite-difference time-domain methods, inverting a
large matrix, in wave number space for the former case and in real space at
each time step for the latter case, can be avoided to greatly speed up
numerical calculations. In addition, based on a partial-domain method, the
formalism presented here can be employed to treat a composite surface (e.g., a
slotted metal film with different dielectric materials in the slots), while the
analytical Green's function approach [J. Opt. A: Pure Appl. Opt. 8, S191
(2006)] becomes intractable in this case. Some numerical results are presented
as a demonstration of this new analytical model.
