TY - JOUR
T1 - Spin-orbit interaction of light induced by transverse spin angular momentum engineering
AU - Shao, Zengkai
AU - Zhu, Jiangbo
AU - Chen, Yujie
AU - Zhang, Yanfeng
AU - Yu, Siyuan
N1 - SYSU is supported by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2014CB340000), National Natural Science Foundations of China (61490715, U1701661, 11774437, 61323001, and 11690031), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFB0402503), and Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou (201707020017). UoB is supported by European Union Horizon2020 project ROAM.
PY - 2018/12
Y1 - 2018/12
N2 - The investigations on optical angular momenta and their interactions have broadened our knowledge of light's behavior at sub-wavelength scales. Recent studies further unveil the extraordinary characteristics of transverse spin angular momentum in confined light fields and orbital angular momentum in optical vortices. Here we demonstrate a direct interaction between these two intrinsic quantities of light. By engineering the transverse spin in the evanescent wave of a whispering-gallery-mode-based optical vortex emitter, a spin-orbit interaction is observed in generated vortex beams. Inversely, this unconventional spin-orbit interplay further gives rise to an enhanced spin-direction locking effect in which waveguide modes are unidirectionally excited, with the directionality jointly controlled by the spin and orbital angular momenta states of light. The identification of this previously unknown pathway between the polarization and spatial degrees of freedom of light enriches the spin-orbit interaction phenomena, and can enable various functionalities in applications such as communications and quantum information processing.
AB - The investigations on optical angular momenta and their interactions have broadened our knowledge of light's behavior at sub-wavelength scales. Recent studies further unveil the extraordinary characteristics of transverse spin angular momentum in confined light fields and orbital angular momentum in optical vortices. Here we demonstrate a direct interaction between these two intrinsic quantities of light. By engineering the transverse spin in the evanescent wave of a whispering-gallery-mode-based optical vortex emitter, a spin-orbit interaction is observed in generated vortex beams. Inversely, this unconventional spin-orbit interplay further gives rise to an enhanced spin-direction locking effect in which waveguide modes are unidirectionally excited, with the directionality jointly controlled by the spin and orbital angular momenta states of light. The identification of this previously unknown pathway between the polarization and spatial degrees of freedom of light enriches the spin-orbit interaction phenomena, and can enable various functionalities in applications such as communications and quantum information processing.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042915577&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-018-03237-5
DO - 10.1038/s41467-018-03237-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 29500340
AN - SCOPUS:85042915577
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 9
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 926
ER -