A first approach of a modal method by Gegenbauer polynomial expansion (MMGE1) is presented for a plane wave diffraction by a lamellar grating. Modal methods are among the most popular methods that are used to solve the problem of lamellar gratings. They consist in describing the electromagnetic field in terms of eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of an operator. In the particular case of the Fourier modal method (FMM), the eigenfunctions are approximated by a finite Fourier sum, and this approximation can lead to a poor convergence of the FMM. The Wilbraham-Gibbs phenomenon may be one of the reasons for this poor convergence. Thus, it is interesting to investigate other basis functions that may represent the fields more accurately. The approach proposed in this paper consists in subdividing the pattern in homogeneous layers, according to the periodicity axis. The field is expanded, in each layer, on the basis of Gegenbauer's polynomials. Boundary conditions are rigorously written between adjacent layers; thus, an eigenvalue equation is obtained. The approach presented in this paper proves to describe the fields accurately. Finally, it is demonstrated that the results obtained with the MMGE1 are more accurate than several existing modal methods, such as the classical and the parametric FMM.