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Controlling the polarization state of electromagnetic radiation enables the investigation of fundamental symmetry properties of matter through chiroptical processes. Many strategies have been developed to reveal structural or dynamical…

Chirality, or handedness, is a geometrical property denoting a lack of mirror symmetry. Chirality is ubiquitous in nature and is associated with the non-reciprocal interactions observed in complex systems ranging from biomolecules to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-08-08 Jonah S. Peter , Stefan Ostermann , Susanne F. Yelin

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) carried by helical light beams is an unbounded degree of freedom of photons that offers a promising playground in modern photonics. So far, integrated sources of coherent light carrying OAM are based on…

In quantum mechanics, each conserved quantity (e.g., energy, position, linear momentum and angular momentum) is associated with a Hermitian operator. Its expected value can then be determined by performing a measurement on the wavefunction.…

We consider the energy and helicity densities of circularly polarised light within a lossless chiral medium, characterised by the chirality parameter $\beta$. A form for the helicity density is introduced, valid to first order in $\beta$,…

Molecular chirality plays an important role in chemistry and biology, allows control of biological interactions, affects drugs efficacy and safety, and promotes synthesis of new materials. In general, chirality manifests itself in optical…

Optics · Physics 2026-04-10 Yuanyang Xie , Alexey V. Krasavin , Anatoly V. Zayats

The interaction between circularly polarized (CP) light and matter is governed by two fundamental quantities: spin angular momentum (SAM) and optical chirality (OC). While these quantities are inseparable in free space, they can be…

Chirality is an intriguing property of certain molecules, materials or artificial nanostructures, which allows them to interact with the spin angular momentum of the impinging light field. Due to their chiral geometry, they can distinguish…

Optics · Physics 2016-11-03 Peter Banzer , Pawel Wozniak , Uwe Mick , Israel De Leon , Robert W. Boyd

Circular dichroism (CD) induced by spin angular momentum of light is vital to investigate the chirality of microscopic objects such as molecules, proteins and metamaterials. However, orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light failed to…

We establish a general unified formulation which, using the optical theorem of electromagnetic helicity, shows that dichorism is a phenomenon arising in any scattering -or diffraction- process, elastic or not, of chiral electromagnetic…

Optics · Physics 2017-04-12 Manuel Nieto-Vesperinas

Chirality is a fundamental symmetry concept describing discrete states, i.e., left-handed, right-handed, or achiral, and existing at disparate scales and in many categories of scientific fields. Even though symmetry breaking is…

On the one hand, electromagnetic dual particles preserve the helicity of light upon interaction. On the other hand, chiral particles respond differently to light of opposite helicity. These two properties on their own constitute a source of…

Helicity $H$, chirality $C$, and spin angular momentum $\mathbf{S}$ are three physical observables that play an important role in the study of optical fields. These quantities are closely related, but their connection is hidden by the use…

Optics · Physics 2022-10-31 Andrea Aiello

Many nanophotonic applications require precise control and characterization of electromagnetic field properties at the nanoscale. The chiral properties of the field are among its key characteristics, yet measurement of optical chirality at…

Optics · Physics 2022-02-18 Abid Anjum Sifat , Filippo Capolino , Eric O. Potma

Chiral microlasers with orbital angular momenta are promising platforms for developing integrated high-dimensional photonic devices. However, it's still challenging to arbitrarily manipulate the degree of chirality and quantum numbers of…

Optics · Physics 2022-08-26 Zhen Qiao , Song Zhu , Yu-Cheng Chen

Geometrical chirality is a universal property encountered on very different length scales ranging from geometrical shapes of living organisms to protein and DNA molecules. Interaction of chiral matter with chiral light - that is,…

Right- and left-handed circularly polarized light interact differently with electronic charges in chiral materials. This asymmetry generates the natural circular dichroism and gyrotropy, also known as the optical activity. Here we…

Coupling between light and material excitations underlies a wide range of optical phenomena. Polaritons are eigenstates of a coupled system with hybridized wave function. Owing to their hybrid composition, polaritons exhibit at the same…

Optics · Physics 2022-12-27 Denis G. Baranov , Christian Schäfer , Maxim V. Gorkunov

Recent years have witnessed growing interest in chiral phonons, lattice vibrations carrying angular momentum and exhibiting handedness, as revealed by helicity-dependent optical phenomena. Despite this progress, a quantitative…

Structured light enables the characterization of chirality of optically small nanoparticles by taking advantage of the helicity maximization concept recently introduced in[1]. By referring to fields with nonzero helicity density as chiral…

Applied Physics · Physics 2020-11-04 Mina Hanifeh , Mohammad Albooyeh , Filippo Capolino