Direct measurement of a pure spin current by a polarized light beam

Jing Wang, Bang-Fen Zhu, Ren-Bao Liu

Published 2007-08-07, updated 2008-07-16Version 4

The photon helicity may be mapped to a spin-1/2, whereby we put forward an intrinsic interaction between a polarized light beam as a ``photon spin current'' and a pure spin current in a semiconductor, which arises from the spin-orbit coupling in valence bands as a pure relativity effect without involving the Rashba or the Dresselhaus effect due to inversion asymmetries. The interaction leads to circular optical birefringence, which is similar to the Faraday rotation in magneto-optics but nevertheless involve no net magnetization. The birefringence effect provide a direct, non-demolition measurement of pure spin currents.