On anomalous optical beam shifts at near-normal incidence

Abstract: We develop the theory of optical beam shifts (both Goos-Hanchen and Imbert-Fedorov) for the case of near-normal incidence, when the incident angle becomes comparable with the angular beam divergence. Such a situation naturally leads to strong enhancement of the shifts reported recently [ACS Photonics 6, 2530 (2019)]. Experimental results find complete and rigorous explanation in our generalized theory. In addition, the developed theory uncovers the unified origin of the anomalous beam shifts enhancement via the Berry phase singularity. We also propose a simple experimental scheme involving quarter-wave plate that allows to observe the giant transverse and longitudinal, spatial and angular beam shifts simultaneously. Our results can find applications in spin-orbit photonics, polarization optics, sensing applications, and quantum weak measurements.