2006/04/28 by Lorenzo Marrucci, L. Marrucci, Carlo Manzo +3 · 10 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies #Optical Polarization and Ellipsometry #Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics #cond-mat.soft #physics.optics #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.163905
published as PRL 96, 163905 (2006)
openalex publication_date 2006/04/28 · arxiv created 2007/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
We demonstrate experimentally an optical process in which the spin angular momentum carried by a circularly polarized light beam is converted into orbital angular momentum, leading to the generation of helical modes with a wave-front helicity controlled by the input polarization. This phenomenon requires the interaction of light with matter that is both optically inhomogeneous and anisotropic. The underlying physics is also associated with the so-called Pancharatnam-Berry geometrical phases involved in any inhomogeneous transformation of the optical polarization.