Spin Hall effect of a light beam in left-handed materials

Journal Article · Thu Oct 15 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.80.043810· OSTI ID:21316476

Hailu, Luo; Shuangchun, Wen; Weixing, Shu; Zhixiang, Tang; Yanhong, Zou; Dianyuan, Fan ^[1]

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1. Key Laboratory for Micro/Nano Opto-Electronic Devices of Ministry of Education, School of Computer and Communication, Hunan University, Changsha 410082 (China)

We establish a general propagation model to describe the spin Hall effect of light beam in left-handed materials (LHMs). A spin-dependent shift of the beam centroid perpendicular to the refractive index gradient for the light beam through an air-LHM interface is demonstrated. For a certain circularly polarized component, whether the transverse shift is positive or negative depends on the magnitude of the refractive index gradient. Very surprisingly, the spin Hall effect in the LHM is unreversed, although the sign of refractive index gradient is reversed. The physics underlying this counterintuitive effect is that the spin angular momentum of photons is unreversed. Further, we reveal that the angular shift in the LHM is reversed due to the negative diffraction. These findings provide alternative evidence for that the linear momentum of photons is reversed, while the spin angular momentum is unreversed in the LHM.

• OSTI ID: 21316476
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 80; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
AIR
BEAMS
DIFFRACTION
HALL EFFECT
INTERFACES
LINEAR MOMENTUM
PHOTONS
REFRACTIVE INDEX
SPIN
VISIBLE RADIATION