Quantum spin Hall effect of light

Abstract

Maxwell's equations, formulated 150 years ago, ultimately describe properties of light, from classical electromagnetism to quantum and relativistic aspects. The latter ones result in remarkable geometric and topological phenomena related to the spin-1 massless nature of photons. By analyzing fundamental spin properties of Maxwell waves, we show that free-space light exhibits an intrinsic quantum spin Hall effect, i.e., surface modes with strong spin-momentum locking. These modes are evanescent waves that form, e.g., surface plasmon-polaritons at vacuum-metal interfaces. Our findings illuminate the unusual transverse spin in evanescent waves and explain recent experiments demonstrating the transverse spin-direction locking in the excitation of surface optical modes. This deepens our understanding of Maxwell's theory, reveals analogies with topological insulators for electrons, and offers applications for robust spin-directional optical interfaces.

8 pages, 4 figures, Supplementary Materials

References in corpus (13)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Topological Photonics
• Classification of topological insulators and superconductors in three spatial dimensions
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• Dissipationless Quantum Spin Current at Room Temperature
• Chiral nanophotonic waveguide interface based on spin-orbit coupling of light
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• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topologically Invariant Chern Numbers
• Geometrodynamics of Spinning Light
• Nonlinear surface waves in left-handed materials
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• Nanophotonic control of circular dipole emission: toward a scalable solid-state to flying-qubits interface

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Chiral Quantum Optics
• Microwave photonics with superconducting quantum circuits
• Nanoscale chiral valley-photon interface through optical spin-orbit coupling
• Optical Momentum, Spin, and Angular Momentum in Dispersive Media
• Optical momentum and angular momentum in complex media: From the Abraham-Minkowski debate to unusual properties of surface plasmon-polaritons
• Three dimensional photonic Dirac points in metamaterials
• PTD Symmetry Protected Scattering Anomaly in Optics
• Emergent pseudospin-1 Maxwell fermions with a threefold degeneracy in optical lattices
• Dielectric nanoantenna as an efficient and ultracompact demultiplexer for surface waves
• Photonic Spin Hall Effect in Waveguides Composed of Two Types of Single-Negative Metamaterials
• Collective polaritonic modes in an array of two-level quantum emitters coupled to optical nanofiber
• The Existence of Topological Edge States in Honeycomb Plasmonic Lattices
• Topologically protected elastic waves in one-dimensional phononic crystals of continuous media
• Unidirectional Maxwellian Spin Waves
• Complete polarization control for a nanofiber waveguide using directional coupling
• Transverse angular momentum in topological photonic crystals
• Unidirectional plasmonic edge modes on general two-dimensional materials
• Nonlinear response in a non-centrosymmetric topological insulator
• Transverse multipolar light-matter couplings in evanescent waves
• Near-field imaging of spin-locked edge states in all-dielectric topological metasurfaces
• The effects of dissipation on topological mechanical systems
• Transverse photon spin beyond interfaces