Spin–Orbit Coupling within Tightly Focused Circularly Polarized Spatiotemporal Vortex Wavepacket

Abstract

Spin–orbital coupling and interaction as intrinsic light field characteristics have been extensively studied. Previous studies involve the spin angular momentum (SAM) carried by circular polarization and orbital angular momentum (OAM) associated with a spiral phase wavefront within the beam cross section, where both the SAM and OAM are in parallel with the propagation direction. In this work, we numerically study a new type of spin–orbital coupling between the longitudinal SAM and the transverse OAM carried by a spatiotemporal optical vortex (STOV) wavepacket under tight focusing condition. Intricate spatiotemporal phase singularity structures are formed when a circularly polarized STOV wavepacket is tightly focused by a high numerical aperture objective lens. For the transversely polarized components, phase singularity orientation can be significantly tilted away from the transverse direction toward the optical axis due to the coupling between longitudinal SAM and transverse OAM. The connection between the amount of rotation and the pulse width of the wavepacket is revealed. More interestingly, spatiotemporal phase singularity structure with a continuous evolution from longitudinal to transverse orientation through the wavepacket is observed for the longitudinally polarized component. These exotic spin–orbit coupling phenomena are expected to render new effects and functions when they are exploited in light–matter interactions.