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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Comprehensive Characterization of Extended Defects in Semiconductor Materials by a Scanning Electron Microscope
Published on: May 28, 2016
Imaging the spin Hall effect of light inside semiconductors via absorption
Jean-Michel Ménard1, Adam E Mattacchione, Markus Betz
1Department of Physics and Institute for Optical Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A7. jmenard@physics.utoronto.ca
Abstract:
The opposite transverse shifts for the right and left circular polarization components of a 100 fs 820 nm linearly polarized pulse focused onto GaAs are observed in situ via absorption. A time-delayed normally incident probe pulse scanned across the excitation spot detects the differential circular dichroism associated with the pump-induced transfer of spin angular momentum from light to electrons. More generally, we show that for a nonnormally incident probe, one can observe the spin Hall effect for probe light through a variety of pump-induced changes to a material's optical properties.
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