Goos–Hänchen and Imbert–Fedorov beam shifts: an overview

We consider reflection and transmission of polarized paraxial light beams at a plane dielectric interface. The field transformations taking into account a finite beam width are described based on the plane-wave representation and geometric rotations. Using geometrical-optics coordinate frames accompanying the beams, we construct an effective Jones matrix characterizing spatial-dispersion properties of the interface. This results in a unified self-consistent description of the Goos-Hanchen and Imbert-Fedorov shifts (the latter being also known as the spin Hall effect of light). Our description reveals the intimate relation of the transverse Imbert-Fedorov shift to the geometric phases between constituent waves…