Spin and orbital Hall effects for diffracting optical beams in gradient-index media

Abstract

We examine the evolution of paraxial beams carrying intrinsic spin and orbital angular momenta (AM) in gradient-index media. A parabolic-type equation is derived which describes the beam diffraction in curvilinear coordinates accompanying the central ray. The center of gravity of the beam experiences transverse AM-dependent deflections -- the spin and orbital Hall effects. The spin Hall effect generates a transverse translation of the beam as a whole, in precise agreement with recent geometrical optics predictions. At the same time, the orbital Hall effect is significantly affected by the diffraction in the inhomogeneous medium and is accompanied by changes in the intrinsic orbital AM and deformations of the beam.

4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. A

References in corpus (6)

• Dissipationless Quantum Spin Current at Room Temperature
• Conservation of Angular Momentum, Transverse Shift, and Spin Hall Effect in Reflection and Refraction of Electromagnetic Wave Packet
• Geometrodynamics of Spinning Light
• Semiclassical Dynamics of Electron Wave Packet States with Phase Vortices
• Modified geometrical optics of a smoothly inhomogeneous isotropic medium: the anisotropy, Berry phase, and the optical Magnus effect
• Topological spin transport of relativistic electron

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Geometrodynamics of polarized light: Berry phase and spin Hall effect in a gradient-index medium