Probing chirality with inelastic electron-light scattering
Abstract
Circular dichroism spectroscopy is an essential technique for understanding molecular structure and magnetic materials, but spatial resolution is limited by the wavelength of light, and sensitivity sufficient for single-molecule spectroscopy is challenging. We demonstrate that electrons can efficiently measure the interaction between circularly polarized light and chiral materials with deeply sub-wavelength resolution. By scanning a nanometer-sized focused electron beam across an optically-excited chiral nanostructure and measuring the electron energy spectrum at each probe position, we produce a high-spatial-resolution map of near-field dichroism. This technique offers a nanoscale view of a fundamental symmetry and could be employed as "photon staining" to increase biomolecular material contrast in electron microscopy.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2003.05054,
title = {Probing chirality with inelastic electron-light scattering},
author = {Tyler R. Harvey and Jan-Wilke Henke and Ofer Kfir and Hugo Lorenço-Martins and Armin Feist and F. Javier García de Abajo and Claus Ropers},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.05054},
year = {2020}
}