Highly nonparaxial spin Hall effect and its enhancement by plasmonic structures

Abstract

We present a new way to obtain large spin Hall effect of light (SHEL) in nonparaxial situations. We use near field of dipoles which contain all plane waves, both homogeneous and evanescent. We base SHEL on dipole-dipole interaction initiated energy transfer (FRET), which we further enhance using plasmonic platforms. The spin-orbit coupling inherent in Maxwell equations is seen in the conversion of a σ(+) photon to a σ(-) photon. The FRET is mediated by the resonant surface plasmons (SPs), and hence we find very large SHEL. We present explicit results for SHEL on metal films. We also study how the splitting of the SP on a metal film affects the SHEL.