Polarization of light used to make Möbius strips
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.028610
New Scientist : If you take a strip of paper and give it a half twist and tape the ends together, the result is the one-sided loop known as a Möbius strip. Now, Peter Banzer of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany, and his colleagues have demonstrated a similar effect using light. In 2005 it was predicted that light’s polarization could become twisted like a Möbius strip. Banzer and his team achieved the effect by scattering two polarized beams off gold nanoparticles in such a way that the beams interfered with each other. The resulting light had polarizations with either three or five twists. The ability to twist polarized light could reveal details about light’s 3D structure, which could lead to uses in biomedical imaging and particle manipulation.
