1

Weak Measurement on Optical

Systems
Mid Term Report of BS-MS Project(PH-5101)
Sayandip Dhara
11MS016
IISER Kolkata

Under Supervision of
Dr. Nirmalya Ghosh
4th December,2015
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 GH shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 IF shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 Weak Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3 Experimental Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2
Contents 3

1 Introduction
In case of partial reflection at planar dielectric interfaces various kinds of
beam shifts(spatial and angular GH and IF) happen. We use weak measure-
ments to amplify the beam [Link], these shifts(GH and IF) generally
contribute in a very complicated way to give a overall beam shift. Here we
use various elliptical pre and post selection states in the process of weak
measurement to decouple and selectively amplify the angular IF and the two
variants of GH effect.

2 Theory
2.1 GH shift
GH shift is a longitudinal shift. Its origin is the angular gradient of the
complex Fresnel coefficients( , ). The operator corresponding to GH shift
is :
() 0
[ ]
= (1)
0 ()
where
ln ln
() = , () = (2)

The eigen-modes are [1 0] [0 1] .

2.2 IF shift
IF shift is a transverse shift. Its origin is the evolution of geometric phase
and the resulting spin-orbit interaction of [Link] operator corresponding
to IF shift is:
0 ()
[ ]
= (3)
() 0
where ( ) ( )

() = 1 + cot , () = 1 + cot (4)

The eigen-modes are both LCP/RCP and 45
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Figure 1: Visualization of Beam Shifts

2.3 Weak Values

Weak measurement was introduced in the context of quantum mechanics
at first . But later on the technique was used to amplify tiny shifts in many
classical optical experiments. Weak value for the GH and IF shifts are defined
as :
| | | |
= = (5)


| |
Note that the pre-selected state is not the input polarization state| here,
rather it is| = | . Here, R is a 22 diagonal matrix (with its el-
ements () and ()) representing the Fresnel reflection Jones matrix.
Equipped with the above polarization operator based treatment, we now
proceed to our proposed modified weak measurement schemes.
Scheme-1:Pre-selection in circular polarization (LCP/RCP) and
post-selection in nearly orthogonal elliptical polarization states.
[ ] T
The input polarization state is chosen |in =[1 , 2 ] T = r1p , i r1s such that
the pre-selected polarization state becomes LCP =[1, ] T . Here, we

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have used two component Jones vector to represent the polarization states
[4]. In weak measurements, the post selected state is nearly (but not

exactly) orthogonal to , leading to a large magnitude of the weak value

( of Eq. 3). In this case, the exactly orthogonal RCP state[1, ] T can be
produced in infinite different ways using a combination of a quarter wave-
plate (QWP) and a linear polarizer in sequence, with the relative orientation
of the axis of QWP kept at an angle 45O with respect to the axis of the po-
larizer. The post-selections at nearly orthogonal elliptical polarization states
can then be done by rotating the polarizer a small angle off from the
exact orthogonal position. In the following, we discuss two such different
post-selection schemes, to separately observe the angular GH and IF (eigen
modes 450 linear polarizations) shifts. Note that in this case, there would
be no weak measurements on the spatial IF shift with LCP/RCP eigen po-
larization states, as the pre-selected state is LCP.
(a): QWP axis (slow axis) kept along the vertical direction, fol-
lowed by a polarizer with its axis at an angle (450 ) with respect
to the horizontal axis (direction of p-polarization):

1
[ ]
=

(1 )
The expressions for the weak values of GH and IF shifts can be derived using
Eq. (3) as ( )



( )
,
= + (6)
2 2
( )


1
( )
= cot + + 2 cot (7)
,
2 2
Henceforth, thesigns in weak values correspond to post selections with
and the superscripts (a, b, c etc.) correspond to post-selection schemes.
(b): QWP axis kept at an angle 450 (slow axis) with respect to
the horizontal (direction of p-polarization), followed by a polar-
izer at90 with respect to the horizontal axis:

= 1 (1 + ) (1 )
[ ]

2 (1 ) (1 )
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The corresponding expressions for the weak values are

( )



( )
= + , (8)
,

2 2
( )


1
( )
=
,
cot + + 2 cot (9)
2 2
Real weak value implies shift in spatial domain and imaginary weak value
implies shift in momentum domain.
For (a) GH weak value: purely imaginary (angular shift) Only the part pro-
portional to ( 1 ) is amplified
For (a) IF weak value: real (spatial shift)
As the part proportional to ( 1 ) is amplified so only the angular GH is
experimentally observed (with appropriate choice of the beam parameters
and propagation distance).
(

)

,
= ,
= ,
(10)
0
For (b)only the angular IF is experimentally observed (with appropriate
choice of the beam parameters and propagation distance)
( )

=
,
=
cot , ,
(11)
0

Here, ( )are angular derivatives of , ,is the wavelength, is the propa-

gation distance and 0 is the Rayleigh range of a fundamental Gaussian beam.

3 Experimental Setup
In our experimental system (shown in Figure 2), the 632.8 nm line of a He-
Ne laser (HRR120-1, Thorlabs, USA) was used as the source. The beam was
spatially filtered, collimated and then focused by a lens L (focal length f =
15 cm) to a spot size of 0 = 100 The polarization state of the input
beam is controlled by a combination of a Glan-Thompson linear polarizer
P1 (GTH10M-A, Thorlabs, USA) and a removable quarter waveplate QWP1
(WPQ10M-633, Thorlabs, USA) mounted on computer controlled precision
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Figure 2: Experimental Setup

rotational mounts (PRM1/MZ8, Thorlabs, USA). The beam then undergoes

external reflection from the surface of a 45 90 45 7 prism (PS912,
Thorlabs, USA, refractive index n = 1.516) mounted on a computer con-
trolled Nano Rotation Stage (NR360S/M, Thorlabs, USA). The reflected
beam is passed through the polarization post-selecting unit, comprising of a
similar arrangement of rotatable Glan-Thompson linear polarizer P2 and ro-
tatable quarter waveplate QWP2, but placed in reverse order. The resulting
beam shift is detected by a CCD camera (MP3.3-RTV-R-CLR-10-C, Singa-
pore,2048*1536 square pixels, pixel dimension 3.45 m ). The propagation
distance z was chosen to be 38 cm.

4 Results
For figure 3 we have calculated the centroid [Link] results are shown for
= 62 , = 0.7.
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Figure 3: Decoupling angular GH and angular IF shift: (a)Longitudinal GH

(b)Transverse IF

Figure 4: The dependence of the shift of the beam centroid representing

(a) the angular GH shift and (b) the angular IF shift on the
angle of incidence for weak measurement schemes 1a and 1b, respectively.

5 Summary
We have decoupled the angular GH and angular IF shifts and selectively
amplified them by means of weak measurement. The basic principle is to
either convert spatial shift to angular shift or retain the angular nature of
the shift by using appropriate elliptical pre and post selection states. We
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have also observed a general principle . If the pre-selected state, the post-
selected states and the eigen-states of a particular shift are in the same plane
then after weak value amplification, the original nature of the shift (spatial or
angular) is retained, whereas if the post-selected states are in a perpendicular
plane to the others then the nature of weak value amplified shift is converted
(angular to spatial or vice versa).
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