SUSU scientists are predicting new optical effects, which in the distant future will help mankind create different technology.
Nataliia Kundikova, Dean of the Faculty of Physics, Head of the Department of Optical Informatics of the Faculty of Physics of the Institute of Natural Sciences of SUSU, has 197 scientific papers, 62 of which have been published in journals indexed in the Web of Science abstract database. Nataliia Dmitrievna was awarded the Galileo Galilei Medal by the International Commission on Optics for the research conducted in Chelyabinsk.
In 2016, Hataliia Kundikova published 3 papers in top-rated journals indexed in Scopus abstract database, one of which ranks among Top-10 journals:
"My basic research is related to the search and investigation of the effects of the manifestation of the spin-orbit interaction of light, that is, the mutual influence of the light propagation path and light property such as polarization," says Nataliia Dmitrievna.
Theoretical works on this topic were conducted by scientists before 1941 and at the same time some optical phenomena were predicted, which were experimentally discovered only after the creation of lasers and optical fibers in the 1980s. Now this effect can be easily shown to schoolchildren.
Thus, the Soviet scientist and radio physicist Sergey Rytov in his paper argued that if linearly polarized light (for example, a laser beam) propagates along a spiral trajectory, then its linear polarization plane will rotate. This is one of the most striking predictions of the influence of light trajectory on its polarization.
"Our article in the journal Optics Express is concerned mainly with the systematization of all the already known effects of the spin-orbit interaction of light, where the role of Soviet physicists in the development of optics is highlighted. There are three more new effects predicted in the article, which no one has yet observed, and one of which has been investigated in this article," says Nataliia Kundikova.
On the one hand, the article is generalizing in nature, but it opens up new effects.
"A beam of light can have its own structure: the transverse distribution of intensity can be granular, has the form of a ring or a semiring as well as lobes. This structure determines the internal orbital angular momentum. In addition, the light beam has a spin angular momentum (polarization) and an external orbital angular momentum (trajectory). All previously studied effects of the spin-orbit interaction are associated with the influence of one of the angular moments on the other. Our assertion is that two angular momenta can simultaneously affect the third angular momentum. The article shows experimentally that the polarization and trajectory of light can influence the structure of the beam," says Nataliia Dmitrievna.
As for the other two effects, they can be thought of only as a prediction. It is necessary to understand under what conditions these effects can be observed and try to observe and investigate the effects experimentally.
The research conducted at the Department of Optical Informatics is fundamental and at the moment it is unlikely that it can be applied in everyday life. However, these studies work for the future. Perhaps in 100 years, today's results will help humanity the same as an optical fiber that allows delivering information at high speeds or as liquid crystal displays, through which we see a clear image on large screens of a TV or computer.
Perhaps the research conducted by Nataliia Dmitrievna and all the staff of the Department of Optical Informatics will help come closer to the dream about the creation of technology of the future we can't think of today.