Modeling ultrabroadband and wide-angle photonic spin Hall effect based on gradient epsilon-near-zero multilayer films
Phys. Rev. B 113, 235305 – Published 5 June, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/gjrr-gkqq
Abstract
The photonic spin Hall effect (PSHE), a typical manifestation of spin-orbit interactions of light, is characterized by a transverse shift δ of photons with opposite spins. Precise measurement of this shift advances spin-dependent technologies, including precision metrology and optical sensing. Previous schemes to enhance the typically small shifts (, where is the operation wavelength) are limited to narrow angular cones (). While some efforts have achieved a giant PSHE over either broad bands or wide angles, combining both advantages cannot realize. Here, we demonstrate an enhanced PSHE (δ/) simultaneously over a broad midinfrared band () and a wide angular width () using doped indium arsenide (InAs) multilayer films with gradient epsilon-near-zero (ENZ). Though applying a moderate magnetic field, the ENZ property and material loss of the anisotropic InAs films excite leaky -polarized electromagnetic modes under polarization waves incident, leading to high broadband absorption. This absorption significantly outweighs that of polarization waves (which lack leaky modes), causing strong polarization splitting. Notably, this splitting is insensitive to incident angle and layer thickness variations, yielding a highly robust, wide-angle PSHE. This mechanism can be generalized to other III-V semiconductors, magnetized metals, topological Weyl semimetals, and zero refractive index metasurfaces.