Spin and orbital angular momenta of light reflected from a cone

Journal Article · Thu Sep 15 04:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.84.033813· OSTI ID:22072179

Mansuripur, Masud; Wright, Ewan M ^[1]; Zakharian, Armis R ^[2]

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1. College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 (United States)
2. Corning Incorporated, Science and Technology Division, Corning, New York 14831 (United States)

We examine several retro-reflecting optical elements, each involving two reflections. In the case of a hollow metallic cone having an apex angle of 90 deg., a circularly polarized incident beam acquires, upon reflection, the opposite spin angular momentum. However, no angular momentum is transferred to the cone, because the reflected beam picks up an orbital angular momentum that is twice as large but opposite in direction to that of its spin. A 90 deg. cone made of a transparent material in which the incident light suffers two total internal reflections before returning may be designed to endow the retro-reflected beam with different mixtures of orbital and spin angular momenta. Under no circumstances, however, is it possible to transfer angular momentum from the light beam to the cone without either allowing absorption or breaking the axial symmetry of the cone. A simple example of broken symmetry is provided by a wedge-shaped metallic reflector having an apex angle of 90 deg., which picks up angular momentum upon reflecting a circularly polarized incident beam.

• OSTI ID: 22072179
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 84; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ANGULAR MOMENTUM TRANSFER
AXIAL SYMMETRY
CONES
ORBITAL ANGULAR MOMENTUM
POLARIZED BEAMS
REFLECTION
SPIN
SYMMETRY BREAKING