Extraordinary spin momenta in birefringent structures

Abstract

Mechanical action caused by the optical forces connected with the canonical momentum density associated with the local wave vector or classical spin angular momentum, the helicity dependent and the helicity independent forces determined by spin momenta of different nature open attractive prospects to use optical structures for manipulating with nanoobjects of different nature. The main finding of our study consists in demonstration of mechanical action of extraordinary transverse component of the spin angular momentum arising in an evanescent light wave due to the total internal reflection of linearly polarized probing beam with azimuth 45° at the interface ‘birefringent plate–air’.