Reaching the highest efficiency of spin Hall effect of light in the near-infrared using all-dielectric metasurfaces

Nat Commun. 2022 Apr 19;13(1):2036. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29771-x.

Abstract

The spin Hall effect of light refers to a spin-dependent transverse splitting of light at a planar interface. Previous demonstrations to enhance the splitting have suffered from exceedingly low efficiency. Achievements of the large splitting with high efficiency have been reported in the microwave, but those in the optical regime remain elusive. Here, an approach to attain the large splitting with high efficiency in the near-infrared is proposed and experimentally demonstrated at 800 nm by using a dielectric metasurface. Modulation of the complex transmission of the metasurface leads to the shifts that reach 10λ along with efficiencies over 70% under two linear polarizations. Our work extends the recent attempts to achieve the large and efficient spin Hall effect of light, which have been limited only to the microwave, to the optical regime.