
We present a new form of optical activity measurement based on a modified weak value amplification scheme. It has recently been shown experimentally that the left- and right-circular polarization components refract with slightly different angles of refraction at a chiral interface causing a linearly polarized light beam to split into two. By introducing a polarization modulation that does not give rise to a change in the optical rotation it is possible to differentiate between the two circular polarization components even after post-selection with a linear polarizer. We show that such a modified weak value amplification measurement permits the sign of the splitting and thus the handedness of the optically active medium to be determined. Angular beam separations of Δθ ∼ 1 nanoradian, which corresponds to a circular birefringence of Δn ∼ 1 × 10−9, could be measured with a relative error of less than 1%.
Author(s): | Pfeifer, Marcel and Fischer, Peer |
Journal: | Opt. Express |
Volume: | 19 |
Number (issue): | 17 |
Pages: | 16508--16517 |
Year: | 2011 |
Publisher: | OSA |
Bibtex Type: | Article (article) |
DOI: | 10.1364/OE.19.016508 |
URL: | http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-19-17-16508 |
Electronic Archiving: | grant_archive |
BibTex
@article{Pfeifer:11, title = {Weak value amplified optical activity measurements}, journal = {Opt. Express}, abstract = {We present a new form of optical activity measurement based on a modified weak value amplification scheme. It has recently been shown experimentally that the left- and right-circular polarization components refract with slightly different angles of refraction at a chiral interface causing a linearly polarized light beam to split into two. By introducing a polarization modulation that does not give rise to a change in the optical rotation it is possible to differentiate between the two circular polarization components even after post-selection with a linear polarizer. We show that such a modified weak value amplification measurement permits the sign of the splitting and thus the handedness of the optically active medium to be determined. Angular beam separations of Δθ ∼ 1 nanoradian, which corresponds to a circular birefringence of Δn ∼ 1 × 10−9, could be measured with a relative error of less than 1%.}, volume = {19}, number = {17}, pages = {16508--16517}, publisher = {OSA}, year = {2011}, slug = {pfeifer-11}, author = {Pfeifer, Marcel and Fischer, Peer}, url = {http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-19-17-16508} }