Photonic Spin Hall Effect at Metasurfaces

Photonic Spin Hall Effect When charged carriers move in a magnetic field, they are deflected—an effect known as the Hall effect. Electrons possess charge and spin, a property related to magnetism. The symmetry of electromagnetism then allows for a spin Hall effect whereby the spin is deflected by an electric field. In optics, photons, too, have electric and magnetic components and should thus also exhibit a corresponding photonic spin Hall effect. Using designer metamaterial surfaces, Yin et al. (p. 1405 ) show that the spin-orbit coupling for photons can be amplified, giving rise to an observable photonic spin Hall effect.