The photonic wheel - demonstration of a state of light with purely transverse angular momentum

P. Banzer; M. Neugebauer; A. Aiello; C. Marquardt; N. Lindlein; T. Bauer; G. Leuchs

doi:10.2971/jeos.2013.13032

Journal of the European Optical Society - Rapid publications, Vol 8 (2013)

The photonic wheel - demonstration of a state of light with purely transverse angular momentum

P. Banzer, M. Neugebauer, A. Aiello, C. Marquardt, N. Lindlein, T. Bauer, G. Leuchs

Abstract

In classical mechanics, a system may possess angular momentum which can be either transverse (e.g. in a spinning wheel) or longitudinal(e.g. for a spiraling seed falling from a tree) with respect to the direction of motion. However, for light, a typical massless wave system,the situation is less versatile. Photons are well-known to exhibit intrinsic angular momentum which is longitudinal only: the spin angularmomentum defining the polarization and the orbital angular momentum associated with a spiraling phase front. Here we show that itis possible to generate a novel state of the light field that contains purely transverse angular momentum, the analogue of a spinningmechanical wheel. We realize this state by tight focusing of a polarization tailored light beam and measure it using an optical nano-probingtechnique. Such a novel state of the light field can find applications in optical tweezers and spanners where it allows for additionalrotational degree of freedom not achievable in single-beam configurations so far.

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