Anisotropic optical spin Hall effect in semiconductor microcavities

Abstract

Propagating, directionally dependent, polarized spin currents are created in an anisotropic planar semiconductor microcavity, via Rayleigh scattering of optically injected polaritons in the optical spin Hall regime. The influence of anisotropy results in suppression or enhancement of the pseudospin precession of polaritons scattered in specific directions. This is exploited to create intense spin currents by excitation on top of localized defects. A theoretical model considering the influence of the total effective magnetic field on the polariton pseudospin quantitatively reproduces the experimental observations. © 2009 The American Physical Society.