Related papers: The ubiquitous photonic wheel
It has been known for a long time that light carries both linear and angular momenta parallel to the direction of propagation. However, only recently it has been pointed out that beams of light, under certain conditions, may exhibit a…
The concept of angular momentum is ubiquitous to many areas of physics. In classical mechanics, a system may possess an angular momentum which can be either transverse (e.g., in a spinning wheel) or longitudinal (e.g., for a fluidic vortex)…
When a beam of light is laterally confined, its field distribution can exhibit points where the local magnetic and electric field vectors spin in a plane containing the propagation direction of the electromagnetic wave. The phenomenon…
Momentum and spin represent fundamental dynamical properties of quantum particles and fields. In particular, propagating optical waves (photons) carry momentum and longitudinal spin determined by the wave vector and circular polarization,…
When a light beam is strongly laterally confined, its field vector spins in a plane not perpendicular to the propagation direction, leading to the presence of transverse spin angular momentum, which plays a crucial role in the field of…
We review basic physics and novel types of optical angular momentum. We start with a theoretical overview of momentum and angular momentum properties of generic optical fields, and discuss methods for their experimental measurements. In…
Transverse spin angular momentum is an inherent feature of evanescent waves which may have applications in nanoscale optomechanics, spintronics, and quantum information technology due to the robust spin-directional coupling. Here we analyze…
Spatially inhomogeneous fields of electromagnetic guided modes exhibit a complex of extraordinary dynamical properties such as the polarization-dependent transverse momentum, helicity-independent transverse spin, spin-associated…
Period-averaged electromagnetic spin angular momentum is a well-established quantity for monochromatic fields, governing phenomena such as light-matter interactions with chiral particles and spin-orbit coupling effects. In contrast, the…
Within monochromatic optical fields, we demonstrate the rotating-wave structured light with wave vortex carrying an intrinsic transverse orbital angular momentum orthogonal to the propagation direction of light. Remarkably, we find that…
In General Relativity, the propagation of electromagnetic waves is usually described by the vacuum Maxwell's equations on a fixed curved background. In the limit of infinitely high frequencies, electromagnetic waves can be localized as…
A spin current - a flow of spin angular momentum - can be carried either by spin polarised free electrons or by magnons, the quanta of a moving collective oscillation of localised electron spins - a spin wave. Traditionally, it was assumed,…
A classical circularly polarized electromagnetic wave carries angular momentum, and represents the classical limit of a photon, which carries quantized spin. It is shown that a very similar picture of a circularly polarized coherent wave…
Access to the transverse spin of light has unlocked new regimes in topological photonics and optomechanics. To achieve the transverse spin of nonzero longitudinal fields, various platforms that derive transversely confined waves based on…
As any physical object, light undergoing a circular trajectory features a constant extrinsic angular momentum. Within strong curvatures, this angular momentum can match the spin momentum of a photon, thus providing the opportunity of a…
Quantum spin-Hall effect, a manifestation of topological properties that govern the behavior of surface states, was studied intensively in condensed matter physics resulting in the discovery of topological insulators. The quantum spin-Hall…
It is well known that spin angular momentum of light, and therefore that of photons, is directly related to their circular polarization. Naturally, for totally unpolarized light, polarization is undefined and the spin vanishes. However, for…
We generate tightly focused optical vector beams whose electric fields spin around an axis transverse to the beams' propagation direction. We experimentally investigate these fields by exploiting the directional near-field interference of a…
Evanescent electromagnetic waves possess spin-momentum locking, where the direction of propagation (momentum) is locked to the inherent polarization of the wave (transverse spin). We study the optical forces arising from this universal…
We provide a vivid demonstration of the mechanical effect of transverse spin momentum in an optical beam in free space. This component of the Poynting momentum was previously thought to be virtual, and unmeasurable. Here, its effect is…