Spin Hall effect of light in photon tunneling

Journal Article · Fri Oct 15 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.82.043825· OSTI ID:21457001

Hailu, Luo; Shuangchun, Wen; Weixing, Shu; Dianyuan, Fan ^[1]

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

We resolve the breakdown of angular momentum conservation on two-dimensional photon tunneling by considering the spin Hall effect (SHE) of light. This effect manifests itself as polarization-dependent transverse shifts of the field centroid when a classic wave packet tunnels through a prism-air-prism barrier. For the left or the right circularly polarized component, the transverse shift can be modulated by altering the refractive index gradient associated with the two prisms. We find that the SHE in conventional beam refraction can be evidently enhanced via photon tunneling mechanism. The transverse spatial shift is governed by the total angular momentum conservation law, while the transverse angular shift is governed by the total linear momentum conservation law. These findings open the possibility for developing new nanophotonic devices and can be extrapolated to other physical systems.

• OSTI ID: 21457001
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 82; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
AIR
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
BEAMS
BOSONS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FLUIDS
GASES
HALL EFFECT
LINEAR MOMENTUM
MASSLESS PARTICLES
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PHOTON BEAMS
PHOTONS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
POLARIZATION
PRISMS
RADIATIONS
REFRACTION
REFRACTIVE INDEX
SPIN
TUNNEL EFFECT
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
VISIBLE RADIATION
WAVE PACKETS