Effect of optical spatial coherence on localized spin angular momentum density in tightly focused light [Invited]

Abstract

Optical coherence is one of the most fundamental characteristics of light and has been viewed as a powerful tool for governing the spatial, spectral, and temporal statistical properties of optical fields during light–matter interactions. In this work, we use the optical coherence theory developed by Emil Wolf as well as the Richards–Wolf’s vectorial diffraction method to numerically study the effect of optical coherence on the localized spin density of a tightly focused partially coherent vector beam. We find that both the transverse spin and longitudinal spin, with the former induced by the out-of-phase longitudinal field generated during strong light focusing and the latter induced by the vortex phase in the incident beam, are closely related to the optical coherence of the incident beam, i.e., with the decrease of the transverse spatial coherence width of the incident beam, the magnitude of the spin density components decreases as well. The numerical findings are interpreted well with the two-dimensional degrees of polarization between any two of the three orthogonal field components of the tightly focused field. We also explore the roles of the topological charge of the vortex phase on enhancing the spin density for the partially coherent tightly focused field. The effect of the incident beam’s initial polarization state is also discussed.

Spin of random stationary light

“…A more rigorous analysis would involve a finite sharp spectral function instead of the Dirac delta function. Equation (24) constitutes the spin version of the result obtained in Ref. [54] and in Ref.…”

“…This fact may not render only a monochromatic treatment inadequate but also a 2D polarization description insufficient, since for random polychromatic light the local electric field can fluctuate in all three orthogonal spatial directions in any reference frame. Such general three-dimensional (3D) polarization states are known to entail some extraordinary spin characteristics [18][19][20][21][22][23][24] with no correspondence in the context of 2D polarization states, which motivates to develop a systematic theory for the SAM of randomly fluctuating, polychromatic optical fields of an arbitrary polarization state.…”