Spin Hall effect of light in photon tunneling

Abstract

We resolve the breakdown of angular momentum conservation on two-dimensional photon tunneling by considering the spin Hall effect (SHE) of light. This effect manifests itself as polarization-dependent transverse shifts of the field centroid when a classic wave packet tunnels through a prism-air-prism barrier. For the left or the right circularly polarized component, the transverse shift can be modulated by altering the refractive index gradient associated with the two prisms. We find that the SHE in conventional beam refraction can be evidently enhanced via photon tunneling mechanism. The transverse spatial shift is governed by the total angular momentum conservation law, while the transverse angular shift is governed by the total linear momentum conservation law. These findings open the possibility for developing new nanophotonic devices and can be extrapolated to other physical systems.