[17p-A402-1~18] 3.12 Nanoscale optical science and near-field optics

[17p-A402-6] Beam splitting using spin-orbit interactions in optical active metamaterials

〇Satoshi Tomita¹, Kei Sawada², Atsushi Sanada³, Tetsuya Ueda⁴ (1.NAIST-GSMS, 2.RIKEN SPring-8, 3.Osaka Univ., 4.Kyoto Inst. Tech.)

Keywords:metamaterials, optical activities, spin-orbit interactions

This paper reports on spin-orbit interactions in optically active metamaterials. The chiral meta-atoms having optical activities in microwave regions are used to construct nonuniform chiral metamaterials with refractive index gradient. Circularly polarized microwaves with opposite "spins of light" go their separate ways in the nonuniform chiral metamaterial. These results demonstrate light beam splitting using spin-orbit interactions in optical active metamaterials, in other words, a microwave analogue of the Stern-Gerlach (SG) effects. Since the splitting is traced back to artificial magnetic fields for microwaves, this work opens the way for synthetic gauge fields for light using metamaterials.