Observation of optical spin symmetry breaking in nanoapertures.
Observation of a spin symmetry breaking effect in plasmonic nanoscale structures due to spin-orbit interaction is presented. We demonstrate a nanoplasmonic structure which exhibits a crucial role of an angular momentum (AM) selection rule in a light-surface plasmon scattering process. In our experiment, the intrinsic AM (spin) of the incident radiation is coupled to the extrinsic momentum (orbital AM) of the surface plasmons via spin-orbit interaction. Due to this effect, we achieved a spin-controlled enhanced transmission through a coaxial nanoaperture.
Gorodetski
Yuri
Y
Micro and Nanooptics Laboratory, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
Shitrit
Nir
N
Bretner
Itay
I
Kleiner
Vladimir
V
Hasman
Erez
E