Related papers: Photoinduced optical rotation in a racemic mixture…
Molecular chirality is conventionally understood as space-inversion-symmetry breaking in the equilibrium structure of molecules. Less well known is that achiral molecules can be made chiral through extreme rotational excitation. Here, we…
Separation of the two mirror images of a chiral molecule, the enantiomers, is a historically complicated problem of major relevance for biological systems. Since chiral molecules are optically active, it has been speculated that strong…
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…
We explore a pure optical method for enantioselective orientation of chiral molecules by means of laser fields with twisted polarization. Several field implementations are considered, including a pair of delayed cross-polarized laser…
Recently developed circularly polarized X-ray light sources can probe ultrafast chiral electronic and nuclear dynamics through spatially localized resonant core transitions. We present simulations of time-resolved circular dichroism (TRCD)…
Inspired by a sea creature, we identify a robust chiral optical force that pushes the opposite enantiomers of a chiral molecule towards regions of orthogonal linear polarization in an optical field via electric dipole interactions. Our…
Chiral light-matter interactions have traditionally been understood in terms of electric-magnetic dipolar interference driven by light with spin angular momentum. Here, we show that optical chirality can also originate from the orbital…
We present an optical "enantio-selective switch", that, in two steps, turns a ("racemic") mixture of left-handed and right-handed chiral molecules into the enantiomerically pure state of interest. The optical switch is composed of an…
We show, both classically and quantum mechanically, enantioselective orientation of gas phase chiral molecules excited by laser fields with twisted polarization. Counterintuitively, the induced orientation, whose direction is laser…
The phenomenon of molecular optical activity manifests itself as the rotation of the plane of linear polarization when light passes through chiral media. Measurements of optical activity and its wavelength dependence, optical rotatory…
We study the excitation of asymmetric-top (including chiral) molecules by two-color femtosecond laser pulses. In the cases of non-chiral asymmetric-top molecules excited by an orthogonally polarized two-color pulse, we demonstrate,…
The rotation of polarization occurs for light interacting with chiral materials. It requires the light states with opposite chiralities interact differently with the materials. We demonstrate analogous rotation of polarization also exists…
We report on the first experimental demonstration of enantioselective rotational control of chiral molecules with a laser field. In our experiments, two enantiomers of propylene oxide are brought to accelerated unidirectional rotation by…
A novel approach for the state-specific enantiomeric enrichment and the spatial separation of enantiomers is presented. Our scheme utilizes techniques from strong-field laser physics, specifically an optical centrifuge in conjunction with a…
Three-wave mixing spectroscopy of chiral molecules, which exist in left-handed and right-handed conformations, allows for enantio-selective population transfer despite random orientation of the molecules. This is based on constructive…
The optical activity of a chiral medium is discussed from the view point of transfer of energy. The absorbed energy of the polarized light in the optical active medium is transferred to the mechanical rotation of the chiral molecule. They…
Enantio-conversion with the help of electromagnetic fields is an essential issue due to the chirality-dependence of many chemical, biological, and pharmaceutical processes. Here, we propose a method for this issue based on a five-level…
Chirality is a fundamental concept in physics that underpins various phenomena in nonlinear optics, quantum physics, and topological photonics. Although the spin of a photon naturally brings chirality, orbital angular momentum can also…
Chirality is ubiquitous from microscopic to macroscopic phenomena in physics and biology, such as fermionic interactions and DNA duplication. In photonics, chirality has traditionally represented differentiated optical responses for right…
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…