Nonlinearity of Pancharatnam’s topological phase

H. Schmitzer, S. Klein, and W. Dultz
Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1530 – Published 6 September 1993
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Abstract

Since Berry introduced topological phases to describe the adiabatic transport of the spin of particles in parameter space, they have become a practical and descriptive concept for understanding interference phenomena in many quantum mechanical systems. For the photon two different applications of this concept were found in crystal optics: (1) the optical activity of helically wound optical fibers and (2) the development of the state of polarization on the Poincaré sphere. We present a remarkable optical ‘‘nonlinearity’’ of certain polarizing interferometers, which we discovered by using the concept of the topological phase on the Poincaré sphere and we demonstrate it with a simple experiment.

  • Received 2 April 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.71.1530

©1993 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

H. Schmitzer

  • Fakultät für Physik, Universität Regensburg, Germany

S. Klein

  • Theoretische Physik, Universität Saarbrücken, D-6600 Saarbrücken, Germany

W. Dultz

  • Deutsche Bundespost Telekom, D-6100 Darmstadt, Germany

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Issue

Vol. 71, Iss. 10 — 6 September 1993

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