Periodically manipulating the photonic spin Hall effect with an electric field

How to control the photonic spin Hall effect (PSHE) at will is a very interesting and significant task. In this letter, we propose an electrically driven method for modulating the spin-dependent splitting in the PSHE. When the light transmits through a liquid crystal variable retarder, the spin-dependent spatial and angular shifts can be periodically manipulated with an applied electric field. The weak measurement technique is introduced to experimentally observe the spatial and angular displacements by choosing different postselection states. These findings may have potential applications in spin-based nanophotonic devices. (C) 2019 The Japan Society of Applied Physics