Realization of photonic spin Hall effect by breaking the rotation symmetry of optical field in light–matter interaction

Abstract Photonic spin Hall effect (SHE) manifests itself as spin-dependent shift or splitting of a light beam, which is derived from spin–orbit interactions, and can be realized by breaking the rotation symmetry of light–matter interaction systems. Here, we demonstrate the observation of a photonic SHE by breaking the rotation symmetry of the optical field, while keeping the rotation symmetry of the inhomogeneous waveplate. The inhomogeneous waveplate constructed by dielectric nanostructures, introduces a spin-dependent Pancharatnam–Berry phase to the two spin components of the input beam, i.e., the left- and right-circular polarization components acquire exactly opposite vortex phases. During beam propagation, they experience opposite azimuthal rotations, and induce a four-lobe spin-dependent splitting in the azimuthal direction. In addition, the spin-dependent splitting becomes more evident upon beam propagation, and can be enhanced by increasing the topological orders of the nanostructures. For comparison, we also examine that no spin-dependent splitting can be observed when keeping the rotation symmetry of the incident optical field.