Optical vortex beams are a type of topological light characterized by their
inherent orbital angular momentum, leading to the propagation of a
spiral-shaped wavefront. In this study, we focus on two-dimensional electrons
with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions and examine how they
respond to pulsed vortex beams in the terahertz frequency band. Spin-orbital
interactions play a vital role in transferring the orbital angular momentum of
light to electron systems and generating spatiotemporal spin textures. We show
that the spatiotemporal spin polarization of electrons reflects orbital angular
momentum carried by optical vortex pulses. These findings demonstrate how
optical vortices facilitate ultrafast spin manipulation in spin-orbit-coupled
electrons. Our results can be straightforwardly extended to the case of
higher-frequency vortex beams for other two-dimensional metals with a larger
Fermi energy.

Cet article explore les excursions dans le temps et leurs implications.

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