Transverse spin in the scattering of focused radially and azimuthally polarized vector beams

Abstract

We study the effect of focusing of the radially and azimuthally polarized vector beams on the spin angular momentum (SAM) density and Poynting vector of scattered waves from a Mie particle. Remarkably, the study reveals that the SAM density of the scattered field is solely transverse in nature for radially and azimuthally polarized incident vector beams; however the Poynting vector shows usual longitudinal character. We also demonstrate that the transverse SAM density can further be tuned with wavelength and focusing of the incident beam by exploiting the interference of different scattering modes. These results may stimulate further experimental technique of detecting the transverse spin and Belinfante's spin-momentum densities.