Does a Surface Polariton Have Spin?

Abstract

We consider a p-polarized surface electromagnetic wave (a classical surface polariton) at the interface between the vacuum and a metal or left-handed medium. We show that the evanescent electromagnetic waves forming the surface polariton inevitably possess a backward spin energy flow, which, together with a superluminal orbital energy flow, form the total Poynting vector. This spin energy flow generates a well-defined (but not quantized) spin angular momentum of surface polaritons which is orthogonal to the propagation direction. The spin of evanescent waves arises from the imaginary longitudinal component of the electric field which makes the polarization effectively elliptical in the propagation plane. We also examine the connection between the spin and chirality of evanescent modes.

5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. A (Rapid Communications)

References in corpus (7)

• Optical alignment and spinning of laser-trapped microscopic particles
• Observation of the spin-based plasmonic effect in nanoscale structures
• Guided Modes in Negative Refractive Index Waveguides
• Nonlinear surface waves in left-handed materials
• Angular Momenta and Spin-Orbit Interaction of Nonparaxial Light in Free Space
• Characterizing optical chirality
• Unusual Resonators: Plasmonics, Metamaterials, and Random Media

Cited by in corpus (115)

• Topological Photonics
• Topological Photonics
• Spin-orbit interactions of light
• Chiral Quantum Optics
• Transverse and longitudinal angular momenta of light
• Quantum spin Hall effect of light
• Chiral nanophotonic waveguide interface based on spin-orbit coupling of light
• Extraordinary momentum and spin in evanescent waves
• Photonic Cyclone: spatiotemporal optical vortex with controllable transverse orbital angular momentum
• Deep-subwavelength features of photonic skyrmions in a confined electromagnetic field with orbital angular momentum
• Dual electromagnetism: Helicity, spin, momentum, and angular momentum
• Universal spin-momentum locking of evanescent waves
• Optical diode based on the chirality of guided photons
• Near-field Radiative Heat Transfer in Many-Body Systems
• Measuring the Transverse Spin Density of Light
• Transverse spin and momentum in two-wave interference
• Direct measurements of the extraordinary optical momentum and transverse spin-dependent force using a nano-cantilever
• Optical Momentum, Spin, and Angular Momentum in Dispersive Media
• Janus and Huygens' dipolar sources for near-field directionality
• Conservation of the spin and orbital angular momenta in electromagnetism
• Optical Polarization Möbius Strips and Points of Purely Transverse Spin Density
• Spin and orbital angular momenta of acoustic beams
• Transverse spinning of unpolarized light
• Spin-orbit interaction of light induced by transverse spin angular momentum engineering
• Optical momentum and angular momentum in complex media: From the Abraham-Minkowski debate to unusual properties of surface plasmon-polaritons
• Transverse spin dynamics of light: the generalized spin-momentum locking for structured guided modes
• Subwavelength particles in an inhomogeneous light field: Optical forces associated with the spin and orbital energy flows
• Photon trajectories, anomalous velocities, and weak measurements: A classical interpretation
• Transverse spin and surface waves in acoustic metamaterials
• Universal Spin-Momentum Locked Optical Forces
• Electric current induced unidirectional propagation of surface plasmon-polaritons
• Force and torque on an electric dipole by spinning light fields
• Lateral Casimir force on a rotating particle near a planar surface
• Angular momenta, helicity, and other properties of dielectric-fiber and metallic-wire modes
• Spin control of light with hyperbolic metasurfaces
• Transverse Chiral Optical Forces by Chiral Surface Plasmon Polaritons
• Chiral plasmons with twisted atomic bilayers
• Transverse spinning of a sphere in a plasmonic field
• Engineering chiral light--matter interaction in photonic crystal waveguides with slow light
• The magnetic and electric transverse spin density of spatially confined light
• Mie scattering and optical forces from evanescent fields: A complex-angle approach
• Bloch-type photonic skyrmions in optical chiral multilayers
• Spacetime algebra as a powerful tool for electromagnetism
• A perspective of twisted photonic structures
• Lipkin's conservation law, Noether's theorem, and the relation to optical helicity
• Scattering of inhomogeneous circularly polarized optical field and mechanical manifestation of the internal energy flows
• Heat meets light on the nanoscale
• Unidirectional sub-diffraction waveguiding based on optical spin-orbit coupling in subwavelength plasmonic waveguides
• Structured transverse orbital angular momentum probed by a levitated optomechanical sensor
• Transverse spin and spin-orbit coupling in silicon waveguides
• Unidirectional and diffractionless surface plasmon-polaritons on three-dimensional nonreciprocal plasmonic platforms
• Modelling quantum light-matter interactions in waveguide-QED with retardation and a time-delayed feedback: matrix product states versus a space-discretized waveguide model
• Mapping the near-field spin angular momenta in the structured surface plasmon polaritons field
• The ubiquitous photonic wheel
• Higher-order modes of vacuum-clad ultrathin optical fibers
• Plasmonic lateral forces on chiral spheres
• Transverse spinning of light with globally unique handedness
• Chiral near fields generated from plasmonic lattices
• Emergence of transverse spin in optical modes of semiconductor nanowires
• Enhanced Electromagnetic Chirality by Locally Excited Surface Plasmon Polaritons
• Near-Field Directionality Beyond the Dipole Approximation: Electric Quadrupole and Higher-Order Multipole Angular Spectra
• Nonuniform currents and spins of relativistic electron vortices in a magnetic field
• Giant Spin Hall Effect in Single Photon Plasmonics
• Spin Angular Momentum Transfer and Plasmogalvanic Phenomena
• Photoinduced Rashba spin to charge conversion via interfacial unoccupied state
• Evanescent Gravitational Waves
• Spin/momentum properties of the paraxial optical beams
• Chiral Light--Matter Interaction Beyond the Rotating-Wave Approximation
• Transverse spin in scattering of focused radially and azimuthally polarized vector beams
• Momentum-space geometric structure of helical evanescent waves and its implications on near-field directionality
• Effects of surface plasmons on spin currents in a thin film system
• Emerging chiral optics from chiral interfaces
• Electron spin transport driven by surface plasmon polariton
• Spin and momentum of the light fields in inhomogeneous dispersive media with application to surface plasmon-polariton waves
• Near-field imaging of surface-plasmon vortex-modes around a single elliptical nanohole in a gold film
• Intrinsic transverse spin angular momentum of fiber eigenmodes
• Optical angular momentum derivation and evolution from vectorial field superposition
• Dynamical characteristics of electromagnetic field under conditions of total reflection
• Probing vectorial near field of light: imaging theory and design principles of nanoprobes
• Optically induced electron spin currents in the Kretschmann configuration
• Coherent perfect absorption mediated enhancement of transverse spin in a gap plasmon guide
• Microscopic analysis of the energy, momentum and spin distributions in a surface plasmon-polariton wave
• Classical Emergence of Intrinsic Spin-Orbit Interaction of Light at the Nanoscale
• Transverse spin angular momentum of space-time surface plasmon polariton wave packet
• Electromagnetic dynamical characteristics of a surface plasmon-polariton
• Transverse multipolar light-matter couplings in evanescent waves
• Selective Enhancement of Optical Chirality and Spin Angular Momentum in Plasmonic Near-Field
• Effects of mode mixing and avoided crossings on the transverse spin in a metal-dielectic-metal sphere
• Radiation forces and torques in optics and acoustics
• Dimer chains in waveguide quantum electrodynamics
• Spin-governed topological surfaces and broken spin-momentum locking in a gyromagnetic medium
• Anisotropy-induced Extrinsic Chirality and Chiral Discrimination of Surface Plasmon Polaritons
• Imaging the transverse spin density of light via electromagnetically induced transparency
• Abraham-based momentum and spin of optical fields under conditions of total reflection
• Transverse relativistic effects in paraxial wave interference
• Spectral singularity enhances transverse spin
• Plasmonic Spin-Hall Effect of propagating Surface Plasmon Polaritons in Ni${}_{80}$Fe${}_{20}$ microstructures
• Lorentz-boosted evanescent waves
• Induced Berry Connection and Photonic Spin Hall Effect in Optical Dirac Theory
• Quantum dots as optimized chiral emitters for photonic integrated circuits
• Quantization of electromagnetic modes and angular momentum on plasmonic nanowires
• Helicity locking in light emitted from a plasmonic nanotaper
• Towards Chiral Sensing and Spectroscopy Enabled by All-Dielectric Integrated Photonic Waveguides
• Scaling behavior of the degree of circular polarization of surface plasmon polariton
• Lateral Chirality-sorting Optical Spin Forces in Evanescent Fields
• Magnetic spin-orbit interaction directs Bloch surface waves
• Nonlinear surface plasmons
• Brownian spin-locking effect
• Experimental observation of transverse spin of plasmon polaritons in a single-crystalline silver nanowire
• Spin Current Generation by a Surface Plasmon Polariton
• New investigations on the transverse spin of structured optical fields
• Energy and momentum of the surface plasmon-polariton supported by a thin metal film
• Transverse photon spin beyond interfaces
• Extraordinary transverse spin: Hidden vorticity of the energy flow and momentum distributions in propagating light fields
• Extrinsic spin angular momentum carried by plasmonic vortex in terahertz cylindrical corrugated waveguide