Manifestations of geometric phase and enhanced spin Hall shifts in an optical trap

Abstract

The spin orbit interaction (SOI) of light has been the focus of recent research due to the fundamental consequences and potential applications in diverse systems, ranging from inhomogeneous anisotropic media to engineered plasmonics and metamaterial strutures. Here, we demonstrate perhaps one of the simplest means to study SOI and the spin Hall shift (SHS) using a standard Gaussian TEM00 beam in an optical trap. Our system exploits the versatility and interference generated in a stratified medium to control and manipulate SOI and transfer the resulting angular momentum to optically trapped microparticles. We show that even such a simple setup can lead to an order of magnitude enhancement in the SHS compared to the subwavelength shifts typically obtained. Importantly, this leads to the generation of doughnut-like mode structures from a fundamental Gaussian beam, as well as controlled rotation of mesoscopic particles using a linearly polarized Gaussian beam that lacks intrinsic angular momentum. The local optical torque leading to rotation of the particles is a direct measure of the local spin angular momentum (SAM) density of the field. Our measurement is the first experimental demonstration of using a probe particle to measure the SAM density for nonparaxial fields. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.