Photonic spin-Hall effect as a probe for time-reversal-symmetry broken band topological phases

Abstract

When a plane polarized Gaussian beam of light is incident on a surface, upon reflection it splits into right and left circularly polarized beams that are spatially separated in the direction perpendicular to the plane of incidence. This is known as the photonic spin-Hall effect (PSHE). In this work, we show that the centroid shift, which is the intensity weighted average of the shifts of the right and the left circularly polarized beams directly probes the optical Hall conductivity, which carries the essential information about the topological properties of the system. We show that the centroid shift as a function of the frequency of light has a unique sign structure depending on whether the system is in a time-reversal symmetry broken band topological phase or a trivial phase. Thus, the PSHE may serve as an unambiguous and a non-invasive probe to detect time-reversal symmetry broken band topological phases.