Directional Control of Nonthermal Photocurrents Driven by Optical Spin Angular Momentum

Controlling the flow of electricity in metallic circuits with light is a key goal for future optoelectronics. In this work, we demonstrate all-optical generation and directional control of non-thermal drift photocurrents driven by the transfer of spin optical angular momentum to the electron gas of a plasmonic gold wire. We attribute this phenomenon to the Inverse Faraday Effect and show that the current's direction can be precisely reversed at a subwavelength scale by tailoring the incident light's polarization or laser beam position. A bespoke polarization modulation technique is employed to unambiguously separate ultrafast drift currents from the ubiquitous photothermal background. We further reveal a collaborative mechanism where macroscopic thermal gradients, acting as a driving force, are used to extract and remotely detect the locally-generated nanoscale photocurrents. This robust control and detection scheme paves the way for reconfigurable, all-optical nanocircuitry capable of ultrafast on-chip processing.

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Publication Details

Journal
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Published
2026-10-27
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6c07175
Primary Topic
Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Directional Control of Nonthermal Photocurrents Driven by Optical Spin Angular Momentum

Bruno Gallas, Gérard Colas des Francs, Mathieu Mivelle, María Sanz‐Paz et al.
2 links
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics
article

Directional Control of Nonthermal Photocurrents Driven by Optical Spin Angular Momentum

Bruno Gallas, Gérard Colas des Francs, Mathieu Mivelle, María Sanz‐Paz, Obren Markovic, Roméo Zapata, Diana Singh, Xingyu Yang, Alexandre Bouhélier, Ye Mou, Chantal Hareau
article en

Abstract

Controlling the flow of electricity in metallic circuits with light is a key goal for future optoelectronics. In this work, we demonstrate all-optical generation and directional control of non-thermal drift photocurrents driven by the transfer of spin optical angular momentum to the electron gas of a plasmonic gold wire. We attribute this phenomenon to the Inverse Faraday Effect and show that the current's direction can be precisely reversed at a subwavelength scale by tailoring the incident light's polarization or laser beam position. A bespoke polarization modulation technique is employed to unambiguously separate ultrafast drift currents from the ubiquitous photothermal background. We further reveal a collaborative mechanism where macroscopic thermal gradients, acting as a driving force, are used to extract and remotely detect the locally-generated nanoscale photocurrents. This robust control and detection scheme paves the way for reconfigurable, all-optical nanocircuitry capable of ultrafast on-chip processing.

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Université de Sherbrooke (CA), Ningbo University of Technology (CN), Université de Bourgogne (FR), Dalian University of Technology (CN), Sorbonne Université (FR), Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi (AE), Université Bourgogne Europe (FR), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (FR)
Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Fonds de recherche du Québec, H2020 European Research Council
Openalex Percentile: Top 20%
Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics
DOISourceOpenAlex
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