Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 62: Poster: Quantum Optics and Photonics III

Q 62.62: Poster

Thursday, March 26, 2015, 17:00–19:00, C/Foyer

Chiral photon emission beyond paraxial approximation — •Stefan Walser, Jan Petersen, Jürgen Volz, and Arno Rauschenbeutel — Atominstitut - TU Wien

Electromagnetic radiation is typically considered as a fully transverse polarized wave, where the electric field is perpendicular to the propagation direction. However this is only valid in the paraxial approximation. Beyond this approximation in highly confined light fields non-transversal polarization components appear. Together with the transversal components this leads to local circular polarization where the sense of rotation (spin) depends on the propagation direction. Thus the internal spin of photons gets coupled to their orbital angular momentum. Using this spin-orbit interaction of light we break the mirror symmetry of the scattering of light. Positioning a gold nano-particle on the surface of a nano-photonic waveguide we thereby realize a chiral waveguide coupler in which the handedness of the incident light determines the propagation direction in the waveguide [1].

[1] Jan Petersen et al., Chiral nanophotonic waveguide interface based on spin-orbit interaction of light, Science 346, 6205 (2014)