Resonant mixing of optical orbital and spin angular momentum by using chiral silicon nanosphere clusters.

We present an in-depth analysis of the resonant intermixing between optical orbital and spin angular momentum of Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams, mediated by chiral clusters made of silicon nanospheres. In particular, we establish a relationship between the spin and orbital quantum numbers characterizing the LG beam and the order q of the rotation symmetry group L-q of the cluster of nanospheres for which resonantly enhanced coupling between the two components of the optical angular momentum is observed. Thus, similar to the case of diffraction grating-mediated transfer of linear momentum between optical beams, we demonstrate that clusters of nanospheres that are invariant to specific rotation transformations can efficiently transfer optical angular momentum between LG beams with different quantum numbers. We also discuss the conditions in which the resonant interaction between LG beams and a chiral cluster of nanospheres leads to the generation of superchiral light. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America