Optical vortex pulse induced nonequilibrium spin textures in spin-orbit coupled electrons
Phys. Rev. B 112, 205306 – Published 26 November, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/74st-ntrl
Abstract
Optical vortex beams are a type of topological light characterized by their inherent orbital angular momentum (OAM), leading to the propagation of a spiral-shaped wavefront. In this study, we focus on two-dimensional electrons with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions and examine how they respond to pulsed vortex beams in the terahertz frequency band. Spin-orbital interactions play a vital role in transferring the OAM of light to electron systems and generating spatiotemporal spin textures. We show that the spatiotemporal spin polarization of electrons reflects OAM carried by optical vortex pulses. These findings demonstrate how optical vortices facilitate ultrafast spin manipulation in spin-orbit-coupled electrons. Our results can be straightforwardly extended to the case of higher-frequency vortex beams for other two-dimensional metals with a larger Fermi energy.
