Geometric Spin Hall Effect of Light at Polarizing Interfaces

TL;DR

This paper explores a novel polarization-dependent shift in light beams caused by tilted polarizing interfaces, revealing a geometric Spin Hall Effect of Light that exceeds traditional beam shifts at grazing incidence.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of a tilted polarizing interface and demonstrates how it induces a geometric SHEL, providing explicit results and experimental schemes for this new effect.

Findings

The shift occurs at the polarizer and is independent of detection properties.

At grazing incidence, the displacement exceeds traditional beam shifts.

The effect can be several wavelengths in magnitude.

Abstract

The geometric Spin Hall Effect of Light (geometric SHEL) amounts to a polarization-dependent positional shift when a light beam is observed from a reference frame tilted with respect to its direction of propagation. Motivated by this intriguing phenomenon, the energy density of the light beam is decomposed into its Cartesian components in the tilted reference frame. This illustrates the occurrence of the characteristic shift and the significance of the effective response function of the detector. We introduce the concept of a tilted polarizing interface and provide a scheme for its experimental implementation. A light beam passing through such an interface undergoes a shift resembling the original geometric SHEL in a tilted reference frame. This displacement is generated at the polarizer and its occurrence does not depend on the properties of the detection system. We give explicit results for this novel type of geometric SHEL and show that at grazing incidence this effect amounts to a displacement of multiple wavelengths, a shift larger than the one introduced by Goos-H\"anchen and Imbert-Fedorov effects.