Spin density in partially coherent surface-plasmon-polariton vortex fields

Abstract

We examine the spin angular momentum (SAM) density associated with the recently introduced [Phys. Rev. A 100, 053833 (2019)], partially coherent surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) vortex fields at a metal-air interface. We show that the vortices appearing in such structured SPP fields induce a SAM density both in the interface plane and in the direction normal to the interface. We find that the radial and azimuthal SAM densities are caused solely by the SPP electric-field correlations. However, besides the intrinsic spin component induced by the complex SPP wave vector, the azimuthal SAM density remarkably carries also a spin component created by the elementary SPPs comprising the partially coherent vortex field. The normal SAM density, on the other hand, arises mainly due to the SPP magnetic-field correlations. Our analysis specifically demonstrates that the state of coherence of the partially coherent SPP vortex field plays an essential role in shaping the SAM density distributions. Our findings can find applications to near-field particle manipulation and in spin-based integrated photonic circuit design.