Spin Hall Effect of Light with Near-Unity Efficiency in the Microwave

The spin Hall effect of light (SHEL) refers to a transverse and spin-dependent shift of light in real space at an optical interface. Previous studies of enhancing the SHEL have involved extremely low efficiency, and achieving a large SHEL and high efficiency simultaneously has never been reported. Here, an approach using anisotropic impedance mismatching to attain a large SHEL with near-unity efficiency in the microwave spectrum is proposed. A wire medium that has a near-unity transmission for one polarization and low transmission for the other is used to achieve high efficiency. The spin-dependent splitting is experimentally confirmed by measuring transmission coefficients and the spatial profile of Stokes parameters. The large SHEL with near-unity efficiency will enable highly efficient devices with spin-selective functionalities.

Automated summary

This study proposes a method to achieve a large SHEL and near-unity efficiency in the microwave spectrum using anisotropic impedance mismatching, and experimentally confirms spin-dependent splitting by measuring transmission coefficients and the spatial profile of Stokes parameters.