Goos–Hänchen and Imbert–Fedorov shifts in temporally dispersive attenuative materials

Abstract

The Goos–Hänchen (GH) and Imbert–Fedorov (IF) shifts for the reflection of the beam impinging upon a plane interface separating two temporally dispersive attenuative materials (TDAMs) are studied theoretically and numerically. It is revealed that at the critical angle θc, the GH shift arrives at a positive maximal value, while the IF shift reaches zero. Meanwhile, at the Brewster angle θB, a peak GH shift, which can be a negative or positive value, appears only at the TM(p)-polarization state. Apart from θc and θB, θm, a special and interesting incident angle related to and of the TDAMs is found, at which a negative and the following positive peak GH shifts and a knee point of the IF shift occurs. This is the first discovery to the best of our knowledge. To experimentally investigate these beam shifts in TDAMs in the near future, an experimental set-up developed by several previous ones is reported. Lastly, we present a scheme for measuring the complex refractive index of the weakly lossy TDAM by detecting the GH shift. These results will be applied to the complex refractive index sensor of the TDAM.