Phys.org October 10,2024 Although recent advancements have been made in active emission or passive conversion of polarized light through solution-processed nanomaterials or metasurfaces, the design paths usually encounter limitations. To address these challenges researchers in the Republic of Korea integrated the spatiotemporal modulation of the LED device, the precise control and efficient polarization emission, and the programmable patterning/positioning using 3D printing. They showed high degree of polarization for both linearly and circularly polarized emission from ultrathin inorganic nanowires and quantum nanorods due to the shear-force-induced alignment effect during the protruding of printing filaments. Real-time polarization modulation was obtained through the […]
Tag Archives: Polarized light
Controlling magnetism with polarized light: Non-thermal pathway uses inverse Faraday effect
Phys.org July 5, 2024 Coherent light-matter interactions mediated by opto-magnetic phenomena like the inverse Faraday effect (IFE) are expected to provide a non-thermal pathway for ultrafast manipulation of magnetism on timescales as short as the excitation pulse itself. As the IFE scales with the spin-orbit coupling strength of the involved electronic states, photo-exciting the strongly spin-orbit coupled core-level electrons in magnetic materials appears as an appealing method to transiently generate large opto-magnetic moments. An international team of researchers (Germany, France, Canada, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden, UK) investigated this scenario in a ferrimagnetic GdFeCo alloy by using intense and circularly polarized […]
Study hints at new way to improve on spintronics for future tech
Nanowerk October 13, 2023 An international team of researchers (USA- Ohio State University, Sweden, UK) used a new method involving the reflection of polarized light on thin films of light metal chromium, successfully detected the orbital Hall effect. The orbital polarization was in-plane, transverse to the current direction, and scaled linearly with current density, consistent with the orbital Hall effect. Comparing the thickness-dependent magneto-optical measurements with ab initio calculations, they estimated an orbital diffusion length in Cr of 6.6±0.6nm. The potential application of this discovery in spintronics could lead to improve data storage in the next generation of computer devices […]
Storing information with spins: Creating new structured spin states with spatially structured polarized light
Phys.org March 27, 2023 So far, only uniformly polarized light has been exploited to control electron spins. However, if the polarization has an additional spatial structure it can produce spatially structured electron spins, opening up new ways to store information. Researchers in Japan devised a method for generating spatially structured electron spins using a structured light with spatially varying polarization profile. They transferred spatially variant polarization of topologically structured light to the spatial spin texture in a semiconductor quantum well. The electron spin texture was directly excited by a vector vortex beam with a spatial helicity structure. The spin texture […]
Metasurfaces control polarized light at will
Phys.org August 14, 2021 A team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, industry) has proposed a new class of computer-generated holograms, called Jones matrix holograms, whose far-fields have designer-specified polarization response. They have provided a simple procedure for their implementation using form-birefringent metasurfaces. Jones matrix holography generalizes past work with a consistent mathematical framework, particularly in the field of metasurfaces. They have demonstrated holograms whose far-fields implement parallel polarization analysis and custom waveplate-like behavior. The new approach could lead to applications in diverse fields including imaging, microscopes, displays, and astronomy. The work shows that the ability to switch between […]