Optics of a Faraday-active Mie Sphere

TL;DR

This paper provides an exact theoretical analysis of light scattering by a Faraday-active Mie sphere, exploring magneto-transverse effects and comparing results with classical Faraday phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces an exact calculation method for light scattering from a Faraday-active sphere, including the first-order magnetic field effects, and investigates the Photonic Hall Effect in this context.

Findings

Derived the T-matrix for a magneto-active Rayleigh scatterer.

Analyzed the presence of the Photonic Hall Effect in a single Mie sphere.

Compared Mie scattering results with classical Faraday effects in optics.

Abstract

We present an exact calculation for the scattering of light from a single sphere made of a Faraday-active material, into first order of the external magnetic field. When the size of the sphere is small compared to the wavelength the known T-matrix for a magneto-active Rayleigh scatterer is found. We address the issue whether or not there is a so called \em Photonic Hall Effect - \em a magneto-transverse anisotropy in light scattering - for one Mie scatterer. In the limit of geometrical optics, we compare our results to the Faraday effect in a Fabry-Perot etalon.