Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 22, 2026
Spectral and Angle-Resolved Magneto-Optical Characterization of Photonic Nanostructures
Published on: November 21, 2019
Observation of optical spin symmetry breaking in nanoapertures
Yuri Gorodetski1, Nir Shitrit, Itay Bretner
1Micro and Nanooptics Laboratory, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
Abstract:
Observation of a spin symmetry breaking effect in plasmonic nanoscale structures due to spin-orbit interaction is presented. We demonstrate a nanoplasmonic structure which exhibits a crucial role of an angular momentum (AM) selection rule in a light-surface plasmon scattering process. In our experiment, the intrinsic AM (spin) of the incident radiation is coupled to the extrinsic momentum (orbital AM) of the surface plasmons via spin-orbit interaction. Due to this effect, we achieved a spin-controlled enhanced transmission through a coaxial nanoaperture.
