光自旋霍尔效应及其研究进展

The spin Hall effect of Light

光束在经过非均匀介质后,自旋角动量相反(左、右旋圆偏振)的光子在垂直于入射面的横向相互分离,造成光束的自旋分裂,这种现象叫做光自旋霍尔效应.它类似于电子系统中的自旋霍尔效应:自旋光子扮演自旋电子的角色,而折射率梯度则起外场作用.光自旋霍尔效应为操控光子提供了新的途径,在纳米光学、量子信息和半导体物理方面具有重要的应用前景;同时由于它与凝聚态和高能物理中的带电粒子自旋霍尔效应有高度的相似性和共同的拓扑根源,所以又为测量自旋霍尔效应这类弱拓扑现象提供了独特而又方便的机会.文章简单介绍了光自旋霍尔效应,并总结了近几年国内外的研究进展.

When a beam propagates through inhomogeneous media,photons with opposite spin angular momenta will deviate from each other and assemble at the two sides of the beam section,leading to a spindependent splitting, and this phenomenon can be regarded as the spin Hall effect （SHE） of light. It is a direct optical analogy of the SHE in electronic systems where the spin electrons and electric potential are replaced by spin photons and the refractive index gradient, respectively. The SHE of light paves a new way to manipulate photons and may find important applications in nano-optics, quantum information, and semiconductor physics. Because of the close similarity and common topological roots of the effect in optics, condensed matter, and high-energy physics, the optical SHE provides indirect evidence of the intrinsic SHE in a diversity of physical systems. We present a simple introduction and overview of the latest research in this field.