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STRUCTURED LIGHT

Longitudinal fields and transverse rotations

Nature Photonics volume 15, pages 72–74 (2021)Cite this article

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Electromagnetic fields in light waves are mainly transverse to propagation direction but actually also have longitudinal components, which may give rise to unexpected optical phenomena involving the angular momentum of light, such as transverse spin and optical torques.

Light waves, as all electromagnetic waves, are said to be ‘transverse’, meaning that the electric and magnetic fields oscillate in a plane that is orthogonal to the wave propagation direction. However, this is strictly true only for an infinitely extended plane wave. Any realistic, finite wave deviates from this simple rule and also exhibits, usually small, ‘longitudinal’ oscillating field components, parallel to the wave propagation direction. The interplay of these often-neglected components with the ordinary transverse ones, in turn, underlies a number of interesting optical phenomena, typically involving the angular momentum of light and its transfer to matter. Two striking examples of such phenomena1,2 are now reported in Nature Photonics.

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Fig. 1: Longitudinal and transverse components of optical fields, in free space and in anisotropic media.

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  1. Physics Department “Ettore Pancini”, Università di Napoli Federico II, Complesso Universitario di Monte Sant’Angelo, Napoli, Italy

    Filippo Cardano & Lorenzo Marrucci

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  1. Filippo Cardano
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  2. Lorenzo Marrucci
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Correspondence to Filippo Cardano or Lorenzo Marrucci.

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Cardano, F., Marrucci, L. Longitudinal fields and transverse rotations. Nat. Photonics 15, 72–74 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-020-00756-w

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