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Published Online January 10, 2008
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1152697

Reports

Submitted on November 7, 2007
Accepted on December 27, 2007

Observation of the Spin Hall Effect of Light via Weak Measurements

Onur Hosten 1* and Paul Kwiat 1

1 Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Onur Hosten , E-mail: hosten{at}uiuc.edu

We have detected a spin-dependent displacement perpendicular to the refractive index gradient for photons passing through an air-glass interface. The effect is the photonic version of the spin Hall effect in electronic systems, indicating the universality of the effect for particles of different nature. Treating the effect as a weak measurement of the spin projection of the photons, we utilize a pre- and post-selection technique on the spin state to enhance the original displacement by nearly four orders of magnitude, attaining sensitivity to displacements of ~1Å. The spin Hall effect can be used for manipulating photonic angular momentum states, while the measurement technique holds promise for precision metrology.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)