The upper limit of the in-plane spin splitting of Gaussian beam reflected from a glass-air interface

Abstract Optical spin splitting has a promising prospect in quantum information and precision metrology. Since it is typically small, many efforts have been devoted to its enhancement. However, the upper limit of optical spin splitting remains uninvestigated. Here, we investigate systematically the...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wenguo Zhu, Jianhui Yu, Heyuan Guan, Huihui Lu, Jieyuan Tang, Jun Zhang, Yunhan Luo, Zhe Chen
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/4b38c23ef8c548f094adad3dcec69cce
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Abstract Optical spin splitting has a promising prospect in quantum information and precision metrology. Since it is typically small, many efforts have been devoted to its enhancement. However, the upper limit of optical spin splitting remains uninvestigated. Here, we investigate systematically the in-plane spin splitting of a Gaussian beam reflected from a glass-air interface and find that the spin splitting can be enhanced in three different incident angular ranges: around the Brewster angle, slightly smaller than and larger than the critical angle for total reflection. Within the first angular range, the reflected beam can undergo giant spin splitting but suffers from low energy reflectivity. In the second range, however, a large spin splitting and high energy reflectivity can be achieved simultaneously. The spin splitting becomes asymmetrical within the last angular range, and the displacement of one spin component can be up to half of incident beam waist w 0/2. Of all the incident angles, the spin splitting reaches its maximum at Brewster angle. This maximum splitting increases with the refractive index of the “glass” prism, eventually approaching an upper limit of w 0. These findings provide a deeper insight into the optical spin splitting phenomena and thereby facilitate the development of spin-based applications.