Orbital and Spin Photon Angular Momentum Transfer in Liquid Crystals

Piccirillo, Bruno; Toscano, Cinzia; Vetrano, F.; Santamato, Enrico

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.86.2285

Cited by 44 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The transfer of spin and orbital AM to microscopic particles [7,8,9,10] and to liquid crystals [11,12] has been observed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Spin and orbital angular momentum of a class of nonparaxial light beams having a globally defined polarization

2009

Phys. Rev. A

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It is shown that the momentum density of free electromagnetic field splits into two parts. One has no contribution to the net momentum due to the transversality condition. The other yields all the momentum. The angular momentum that is associated with the former part is spin, and the angular momentum that is associated with the latter part is orbital angular momentum. Expressions for the spin and orbital angular momentum are given in terms of the electric vector in reciprocal space. The spin and orbital angular momentum defined this way are used to investigate the angular momentum of nonparaxial beams that are described in a recently published paper [Phys. Rev. A 78, 063831 (2008)]. It is found that the orbital angular momentum depends, apart from an l-dependent term, on two global quantities, the polarization represented by a generalized Jones vector and a new characteristic represented by a unit vector I, though the spin depends only on the polarization. The polarization dependence of orbital angular momentum through the impact of I is obtained and discussed. Some applications of the result obtained here are also made. The fact that the spin originates from the momentum density that has no contribution to the net momentum is used to show that there does not exist the paradox on the spin of circularly polarized plane wave. The polarization dependence of both spin and orbital angular momentum is shown to be the origin of conversion from the spin of a paraxial Laguerre-Gaussian beam into the orbital angular momentum of the focused beam through a high numerical aperture.

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“…The transfer of spin and orbital AM to microscopic particles [7,8,9,10] and to liquid crystals [11,12] has been observed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Spin and orbital angular momentum of a class of nonparaxial light beams having a globally defined polarization

2009

Phys. Rev. A

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“…The radiation itself is commonly referred to as a 'twisted' or 'helical' beam. Mostly, optical vortices have been studied only in their interactions with achiral matter -the only apparent exception is some recent work on liquid crystals [6][7][8]. It is timely and of interest to assess what new features, if any, can be expected if such beams are used to interrogate any system whose optical response is associated with enantiomerically specific molecules.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On optical vortex interactions with chiral matter

Andrews

Romero

Babiker

2004

Optics Communications

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Optical beams with a new and distinctive type of helicity ha ve become the subject of much recent interest. While circularly polarised light comprises photons with spin angular momentum, these optically engineered 'twisted beams' (optical vortices) are endowed with orbital angular momentum. Here, the wave-front surface of the electromagnetic fields assumes helical form. To date, optical vortices have generally been studied only in their interactions with achiral matter. This study assesses what new features, if any, can be expected when such beams are used to interrogate a chiral system.

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“…[31,32,33]. Interestingly, there are a number of dynamical effects induced by a light beam normally impinging on a homeotropically aligned NLC cell [34,35,36,37,38] where liquid crystals appear as unique anisotropic materials sensitive to the spin and orbital angular momentum of light.…”

Section: Arxiv:physics/0612114v2 [Physicsoptics] 2 Nov 2007mentioning

confidence: 99%

Singularities in polarization resolved angular patterns: transmittance of nematic liquid crystal cells

Kiselev

2007

J. Phys.: Condens. Matter

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We study the angular structure of polarization of light transmitted through a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) cell by theoretically analyzing the polarization state as a function of the incidence angles. For a uniformly aligned NLC cell, the 4×4 matrix formalism and the orthogonality relations are used to derive the exact expressions for the transmission and reflection matrices. The polarization resolved angular patterns in the two-dimensional projection plane are characterized in terms of the polarization singularities such as C points (points of circular polarization) and L lines (lines of linear polarization). In the case of linearly polarized plane waves incident on the homeotropically aligned cell, we present the results of detailed theoretical analysis describing the structure of the polarization singularities. We apply the theory to compute the polarization patterns for various orientational structures in the NLC cell and discuss the effects induced by director orientation and biaxiality.

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Orbital and Spin Photon Angular Momentum Transfer in Liquid Crystals

Cited by 44 publications

References 14 publications

Spin and orbital angular momentum of a class of nonparaxial light beams having a globally defined polarization

Spin and orbital angular momentum of a class of nonparaxial light beams having a globally defined polarization

On optical vortex interactions with chiral matter

Singularities in polarization resolved angular patterns: transmittance of nematic liquid crystal cells

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