Controlling the optical spin Hall effect with light

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel double-microcavity design that enables simple and robust control of the optical spin Hall effect, facilitating potential applications in spinoptronic devices by linking incident light intensity to far-field polarization patterns.

Contribution

The paper proposes a specific double-microcavity design that allows direct control of the optical spin Hall effect through incident light intensity, advancing spinoptronic device development.

Findings

Demonstrates control of spin textures via cavity design

Establishes a one-to-one correspondence between light intensity and polarization

Provides a practical scheme for spinoptronic applications

Abstract

The optical spin Hall effect (OSHE) is a transport phenomenon of exciton polaritons in semiconductor microcavities, caused by the polaritonic spin-orbit interaction, that leads to the formation of spin textures. In the semiconductor cavity, the physical basis of the spin orbit coupling is an effective magnetic field caused by the splitting of transverse-electric and transverse-magnetic (TE-TM) modes. The spin textures can be observed in the near field (local spin distribution of polaritons), and as light polarization patterns in the more readily observable far field. For future applications in spinoptronic devices, a simple and robust control mechanism, which establishes a one-to-one correspondence between stationary incident light intensity and far-field polarization pattern, is needed. We present such a control scheme, which is made possible by a specific double-microcavity design.