Spin-dependent Klein tunneling in polariton graphene with photonic spin-orbit interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates how photonic spin-orbit coupling influences Klein tunneling in polariton graphene, revealing spin-dependent effects that enable polarization control at microscopic scales.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of emergent gauge fields from spin-orbit coupling in polariton graphene and demonstrates spin-dependent Klein tunneling using polarized optical pumping.

Findings

Spin-orbit coupling suppresses Klein tunneling near Dirac points.

Polarized pumping creates spin-specific potential barriers.

Spin-dependent tunneling enables polarization rotation at microscopic scale.

Abstract

We study Klein tunneling in polariton graphene. We show that the photonic spin-orbit coupling associated with the energy splitting between TE and TM photonic modes can be described as an emergent gauge field. It suppresses the Klein tunnelling in small energy range close to the Dirac points. Thanks to polariton spin-anisotropic interactions, polarized optical pumping allows to create potential barriers acting on a single polariton spin. We show that the resulting spin-dependent Klein tunneling can be used to create a perfectly transmitting polarization rotator operating at microscopic scale.