National Science Review 2018-03-14

Editors' selection of papers from China's academic journals

Yuan Gao

Index: 10.1093/nsr/nwy022

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Abstract

The photonic spin-Hall effect is an important but intrinsically weak effect at the nanoscale. Xiangang Luo and co-workers from the Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, found that a single catenary-shaped hole can generate a near-perfect spin-Hall effect (see Fig. 1). As one of the smallest photonic devices reported so far, the curvature of the catenary acts as an effective magnetic field and makes circularly polarized light bend in opposite directions in a broadband spectrum. It opens a door to the utilization of continuous nanostructures as miniaturized functional optical devices.