  Photonic components based on structured metallic elements show great
potential for device applications where field enhancement and confinement of
the radiation on a subwavelength scale is required. In this paper we report a
detailed study of a prototypical metallo-dielectric photonic structure, where
features well known in the world of dielectric photonic crystals, like band
gaps and defect modes, are exported to the metallic counterpart, with
interesting applications to infrared science and technology, as for instance in
quantum well infrared photodetectors, narrow-band spectral filters, and
tailorable thermal emitters.
