Recent advances in the spin Hall effect of light

Abstract

The spin Hall effect (SHE) of light, as an analogue of the SHE in electronic systems, is a promising candidate for investigating the SHE in semiconductor spintronics/valleytronics, high-energy physics and condensed matter physics, owing to their similar topological nature in the spin-orbit interaction. The SHE of light exhibits unique potential for exploring the physical properties of nanostructures, such as determining the optical thickness, and the material properties of metallic and magnetic thin films and even atomically thin two-dimensional materials. More importantly, it opens a possible pathway for controlling the spin states of photons and developing next-generation photonic spin Hall devices as a fundamental constituent of the emerging spinoptics. In this review, based on the viewpoint of the geometric phase gradient, we give a detailed presentation of the recent advances in the SHE of light and its applications in precision metrology and future spin-based photonics.

Wavelength-independent optical fully differential operation based on the spin–orbit interaction of light

“…Based on the boundary condition, the polarization state of reflected photons can be written as [42][43][44][45] in order to satisfy the transversality in reflection 46 . The term of Φ = Δ + Δ is the geometric phase known as the spin-redirection Berry phases 47,48 .…”

Weak-value amplification for Weyl-point separation in momentum space

“…When the electromagnetic wave incidents on the surface without Fermi arc states, the spin-orbit interaction of light occurs and manifests itself as tiny splitting of left-and right-circular components. This phenomenon within visible wavelengths is known as photonic spin Hall effect [27][28][29]. We find that the interaction in WSM is still very weak, and an method called quantum weak measurements is introduced for detection [30][31][32][33].…”

Controlling photonic spin Hall effect via exceptional points

“…Moreover, for the PT-symmetric structure in Fig. 1(b), it is noted that hij = − kij , where hij and kij are the transverse shifts of From the quantitative analysis of photonic SHE, the transverse shift is closely associated with the reflection coefficients [7,12]. Figure 3 shows the magnitude and phase of the reflection coefficients,…”