Realization of Tunable Photonic Spin Hall Effect by Tailoring the Pancharatnam-Berry Phase

摘要

Recent developments in the field of photonic spin Hall effect (SHE) offer newopportunities for advantageous measurement of the optical parameters(refractive index, thickness, etc.) of nanostructures and enable spin-basedphotonics applications in the future. However, it remains a challenge todevelop a tunable photonic SHE with any desired spin-dependent splitting forgeneration and manipulation of spin-polarized photons. Here, we demonstrateexperimentally a scheme to realize the photonic SHE tunably by tailoring thespace-variant Pancharatnam-Berry phase (PBP). It is shown that light beamswhose polarization with a tunable spatial inhomogeneity can contribute tosteering the space-variant PBP which creates a spin-dependent geometric phasegradient, thereby possibly realizing a tunable photonic SHE with any desiredspin-dependent splitting. Our scheme provides a convenient method to manipulatethe spin photon. The results can be extrapolated to other physical system withsimilar topological origins.