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Plasmon‐Enhanced Spin–Orbit Interaction of Light in Graphene
Author(s) -
Ciattoni Alessandro,
Rizza Carlo,
Lee Ho Wai Howard,
Conti Claudio,
Marini Andrea
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
laser and photonics reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.778
H-Index - 116
eISSN - 1863-8899
pISSN - 1863-8880
DOI - 10.1002/lpor.201800140
Subject(s) - physics , graphene , spin–orbit interaction , plasmon , surface plasmon polariton , polariton , excitation , quantum , surface plasmon , condensed matter physics , optoelectronics , quantum mechanics
A novel theoretical framework is developed describing polariton‐enhanced spin–orbit interaction (SOI) of light on the surface of 2D media. The reduced dimensionality of the system is exploited to introduce a quantum‐like formalism particularly suitable to fully take advantage of rotational invariance. Conservation of total angular momentum upon scattering enables the physical unveiling of the interaction between radiation and the 2D material along with the detailed exchange processes among orbital and spin components. In addition, the formalism is specialized to doped extended graphene, finding such an SOI to be dramatically enhanced by the excitation of plasmons propagating radially along the graphene sheet. Several examples of the enormous possibilities offered by plasmon‐enhanced SOI of light are provided including vortex generation, mixing, and engineering of tunable deep subwavelength arrays of optical traps in the near field.