We develop an analytical framework for the analysis of planar chiral multi-split rings, based on a Fourier series expansion of the induced current. The number, width, and location of each split (gap) is arbitrary. Provision is made for the possibility of inserting lumped active or passive impedance loads in the gaps. The model demonstrates the hallmark of planar chirality and its consequent magneto-electric coupling as a function of the parameters of the splits and impedance loads. It is demonstrated that impedance loads sequenced in a clockwise or anti-clockwise fashion allow for generation of dissymetric current distributions in the plane, like for geometric (structural) chirality. We also determine the effect of planar chirality on the relevant dyadic polarizability components of a split ring. Reflection and transmission coefficient characteristics of regular arrays of such rings are determined with the aid of the periodic method of moments. Phase-coherent detection of the sense of handedness and incoherent detection of planar chirality per se by measurement of the field intensity are shown to be possible, in both the reflection and transmission characteristics. These results are relevant to both coherent and incoherent detection at optical and suboptical wavelengths.
We investigate the plasmonic nanohelix as an individual subwavelength element for locally probing light chirality. We show that an hybrid nanoantenna combining a carbon-gold core-shell helix and a plasmonic nanoaperture transmits circularly polarized light with the same handedness as the helix and blocks the other. Such an assymmetric response is spatially localized, spectrally broadband and background-free. Finally, we demonstrate the possibility to engineer an individual plasmonic helix at the apex of a sharp tip typically used in scanning near-field microscopies, thus opening the prospect o…
When circularly polarized light interacts with a nanostructure, the optical response depends on the geometry of the structure. If the nanostructure is chiral (i.e., it cannot be superimposed on its mirror image), then its optical response, both in near-field and far-field, depends on the handedness of the incident light. In contrast, achiral structures exhibit identical far-field responses for left- and right-circular polarization. Here, we show that a perfectly achiral nanostructure, a plasmonic metamolecule with trigonal D3h symmetry, exhibits a near-field response that is sensitive to the h…
Plasmonic chirality exhibits great potential for novel nanooptical devices due to the generation of a strong chiroptical response. Previous reports on plasmonic chirality explanations are mainly based on phase retardation and coupling. We propose a quantitative model similar to the chiral molecules for explaining the mechanism of the intrinsic plasmonic chirality quantitatively based on the interplay and mixing of electric and magnetic dipole modes, which forms a mixed electric and magnetic polarizability. The analysis method is also suitable for small chiral object down to quasi-static limit …
Molecular chirality is a geometric property that is of great importance in chemistry, biology, and medicine. Recently, plasmonic nanostructures that exhibit distinct chiroptical responses have attracted tremendous interest, given their ability to emulate the properties of chiral molecules with tailored and pronounced optical characteristics. However, the optical chirality of such human-made structures is in general static and cannot be manipulated postfabrication. Herein, different concepts to reconfigure the chiroptical responses of plasmonic nano- and micro-objects are outlined. Depending on…
We present a new design of plasmonic nanoantenna with a slant gap for optical chirality engineering. At resonance, the slant gap provides highly enhanced electric field parallel to external magnetic field with a phase delay of 90 degree, resulting in enhanced optical chirality. We show by numerical simulations that upon linearly polarized excitation our achiral nanoantenna can generate near field with enhanced optical chirality that can be tuned by the slant angle and resonance condition. Our design can be easily realized and may find applications in circular dichroism enhancement.
The effects of Fano resonance on the optical chirality of planar plasmonic nanodevices in the visible wavelength range are experimentally observed and theoretically explained. The nanodevice consists of a nanodisk at the center with six gold nanorods with an orientation angle to exhibit optical chirality under dark-field illumination. The chiral response induced by the gold nanorods are affected by the presence of the nanodisk with different diameters which causes Fano resonance. An intriguing change to the opposite selection preference of different handedness of the circularly polarized light…
Chiral nanophotonic devices are promising candidates for chiral molecules sensing, polarization diverse nanophotonics and display technologies. Active chiral nanophotonic devices, where the optical chirality can be controlled by an external stimulus has triggered great research interest. However, efficient modulation of the optical chirality has been challenging. Here, we demonstrate switching of the extrinsic chirality by applied magnetic fields in a magneto-plasmonic metasurface device based on a magneto-optical oxide material, Ce1Y2Fe5O12 (Ce:YIG). Thanks to the low optical loss and strong …
Designing broadband enhanced chirality is of strong interest to the emerging fields of chiral chemistry and sensing, or to control the spin orbital momentum of photons in recently introduced nanophotonic chiral quantum and classical optical applications. However, chiral light-matter interactions have an extremely weak nature, are difficult to be controlled and enhanced, and cannot be made tunable or broadband. In addition, planar ultrathin nanophotonic structures to achieve strong, broadband, and tunable chirality at the technologically important visible to ultraviolet spectrum still remain el…
Chirality is a fundamental feature in all domains of nature, ranging from particle physics over electromagnetism to chemistry and biology. Chiral objects lack a mirror plane and inversion symmetry and therefore cannot be spatially aligned with their mirrored counterpart, their enantiomer. Both natural molecules and artificial chiral nanostructures can be characterized by their light-matter interaction, which is reflected in circular dichroism (CD). Using DNA origami, we assemble model meta-molecules from multiple plasmonic nanoparticles, representing meta-atoms accurately positioned in space. …
We examine, both experimentally and theoretically, an interaction of tightly focused polarized light with a slit on a metal surface supporting plasmon-polariton modes. Remarkably, this simple system can be highly sensitive to the polarization of the incident light and offers a perfect quantum-weak-measurement tool with a built-in post-selection in the plasmon-polariton mode. We observe the plasmonic spin Hall effect in both coordinate and momentum spaces which is interpreted as weak measurements of the helicity of light with real and imaginary weak values determined by the input polarization. …
Dark-field illumination is shown to make planar chiral nanoparticle arrangements exhibit circular dichroism in extinction analogous to true chiral scatterers. Circular dichrosim is experimentally observed at the maximum scattering of single oligomers consisting rotationally symmetric arrangements of gold nanorods, with strong agreement to numerical simulation. A dipole model is developed to show that this effect is caused by a difference in the geometric projection of a nanorod onto the handed orientation of electric fields created by a circularly polarized dark-field that is normally incident…
In this text we describe the role of optical chirality in the context of plasmonics. We clearly distinguish between 2D an 3D optical chirality and connect the problem with reciprocity and time symmetry. We compare our analysis with recent experimental results in nano-plasmonics and photonics.
We present a comprehensive review of recent developments in the field of chiral plasmonics. Significant advances have been made recently in understanding the working principles of chiral plasmonic structures. With advances in micro- and nanofabrication techniques, a variety of chiral plasmonic nanostructures have been experimentally realized; these tailored chiroptical properties vastly outperform those of their molecular counterparts. We focus on chiral plasmonic nanostructures created using bottom-up approaches, which not only allow for rational design and fabrication but most intriguingly i…
Chiral response is of tremendous importance to many fields, such as analytical chemistry, polarization manipulation and biological sensing. Here, a chiral metasurface based on rectangular holes is systematically investigated. The results show that the chirality is closely related to the size and the orientation of resonance unit. It is found that the period of the structure is always smaller than the wavelength at which chirality appears, which will provide a good basis for the design of chiral structures. More importantly, the CD is highly sensitive to the orientation of resonance unit. By ad…
Chirality is a highly important topic in modern chemistry, given the dramatically different pharmacological effects that enantiomers can have on the body. Chirality of natural molecules can be controlled by reconfiguration of molecular structures through external stimuli. Despite the rapid progress in plasmonics, active regulation of plasmonic chirality, particularly in the visible spectral range, still faces significant challenges. In this Letter, we demonstrate a new class of hybrid plasmonic metamolecules composed of magnesium and gold nanoparticles. The plasmonic chirality from such plasmo…
Prospects of using metal hole arrays for the enhanced optical detection of molecular chirality in nanosize volumes are investigated. Light transmission through the holes filled with an optically active material is modeled and the activity enhancement by more than an order of magnitude is demonstrated. The spatial resolution of the chirality detection is shown to be of a few tens of nanometers. From comparing the effect in arrays of cylindrical holes and holes of complex chiral shape, it is concluded that the detection sensitivity is determined by the plasmonic near field enhancement. The intri…
In this work, the circular dichroisms (CD) of nanorice heterodimers consisting of two parallel arranged nanorices with the same size but different materials are investigated theoretically. Symmetry-breaking is introduced by using different materials and oblique incidence to achieve strong CD at the vicinity of Fano resonance peaks. We demonstrate that all Au-Ag heterodimers exhibit multipolar Fano resonances and strong CD effect. A simple quantitative analysis shows that the structure with larger Fano asymmetry factor has stronger CD. The intensity and peak positions of the CD effect can be fl…
The possibility to enhance chiral light-matter interactions through plasmonic nanostructures provides entirely new opportunities for greatly improving the detection limits of chiroptical spectroscopies down to the single molecule level. The most pronounced of these chiral interactions occur in the ultraviolet (UV) range of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is difficult to access with conventional localized plasmon resonance based sensors. Although Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) on noble metal films can sustain resonances in the desired spectral range, their transverse magnetic nature has …
Universal imprinting of chirality with chiral light by employing plasmonic metastructures
Ohio University（俄亥俄大学）；Nanoscale and Quantum Phenomena Institute, Ohio University（俄亥俄大学纳米尺度与量子现象研究所）；Edison Biotechnology Institute, Ohio University（俄亥俄大学爱迪生生物技术研究所）；Departamento de Tecnología médica, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile（智利大学医学院医学技术系）；CINBIO, Universidade de Vigo（维戈大学生物界面化学中心）；Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China（电子科技大学前沿与基础科学研究所）；School of Chemistry, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University（特拉维夫大学雷蒙德和贝弗利·萨克勒理学院化学系）
The theory to calculate circular dichroism (CD) of chiral molecules in a finite cluster with arbitrarily disposed objects has been developed by means of T-matrix method. The interactions between chiral molecules and nanostructures have been investigated. Our studies focus on the case of chiral molecules inserted into plasmonic hot spots of nanostructures. Our results show that the total CD of the system with two chiral molecules is not sum for two cases when two chiral molecules inserted respectively into the hot spots of nanoparticle clusters as the distances among nanoparticles are small, al…
Planar chiral nanoantenna for excitation-chirality-controlled hot spot modulation and emitter-coupled circularly polarized emission
Friedrich Schiller University Jena（耶拿弗里德里希·席勒大学）；Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena（耶拿弗里德里希·席勒大学阿贝光学中心）；Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology（莱布尼茨光子技术研究所）；University of Würzburg（维尔茨堡大学）；The Australian National University（澳大利亚国立大学）；Academia Sinica（中央研究院）；National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University（国立阳明交通大学）
Chirality Inversion and Giant Optical Activity in Scalable Self-Assembled Metamaterials
Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (MPIKG)（马克斯·普朗克胶体与界面研究所）；Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学化学系）；Institute of Light and Matter, Claude Bernard University Lyon 1, CNRS（里昂第一大学克劳德·贝尔纳大学光与物质研究所，法国国家科学研究中心）
When a linear chain of plasmonic nano-particles is exposed to a transverse DC magnetic field, the chain modes are elliptically polarized, in a single plane parallel to the chain axis; hence, a novel longitudinal plasmon-rotation is created. If, in addition, the chain geometry possesses longitudinal rotation, e.g. by using ellipsoidal particles that rotate in the same plane as the plasmon rotation, strong non-reciprocity is created. The structure possesses a new kind of chirality--the longitudinal chirality--and supports one-way guiding. Since all particles rotate in the same plane, the geometr…
Molecular chirality plays a crucial role in innumerable biological processes. The chirality of a molecule can typically be identified by its characteristic optical response, the circular dichroism (CD). CD signals have thus long been used to identify the state of molecules or to follow dynamic protein configurations. In recent years, the focus has moved towards plasmonic nanostructures, as they show potential for applications ranging from pathogen sensing to novel optical materials. The plasmonic coupling of the individual elements of such chiral metallic structures is a crucial prerequisite t…
On chip exciting electric modes in individual plasmonic nanostructures are realized widely; nevertheless, the excitation of their magnetic counterparts is seldom reported. Here, we propose a highly efficient on chip excitation approach of the magnetic dipole mode of an individual split ring resonator (SRR) by integrating it onto a photonic crystal nanocavity (PCNC). A high excitation efficiency of up to 58% is realized through the resonant coupling between the modes of the SRR and PCNC. A further fine adjustment of the excited magnetic dipole mode is demonstrated by tuning the relative positio…
We investigate a geometrically symmetric gold-silicon sphere heterodimer and reveal its extrinsic chiroptical response caused by the interaction with a substrate. The chiroptical response is obtained for oblique incidence owing to the coalescence of extrinsic chirality, heterogeneity and substrate induced break of symmetry. To quantify the chiral response we utilize k-space polarimetry. We elucidate the physics of the involved phenomena by considering scattering properties of the heterodimer in free space and find that incident linearly polarized light is scattered in a spin-split fashion. We …
We consider an array of the meta-atom consisting of two cut-wires and a split-ring resonator interacting with an electromagnetic field with two polarization components. We prove that such metamaterial system can be taken as a classical analogue of an atomic medium with a double- $Λ$-type four-level configuration coupled with four laser fields, exhibits an effect of plasmon induced transparency (PIT), and displays a similar behavior of atomic four-wave mixing (FWM). We demonstrate that when nonlinear varactors are mounted onto the gaps of the split-ring resonators the system can acquire giant s…
The design, fabrication, and optical properties of a composite plasmonic structure, a two-dimentional array of split-ring resonators inserted into periodic square holes of a metal film, have been reported. A new type of transmission resonance, which makes a significant difference from the conventional peaks, has been suggested both theoretically and experimentally. To understand this effect, a mechanism of ring- resonance induced dipole emission is proposed.
Recently, there is a great interest in studying ultrasensitive detection and characterization of biomolecules using plasmonic particles, because they are of considerable importance in biomedical science and pharmaceutics. So far, all the theories on plasmoninduced circular dichroism (CD) are based on the dipole approximation, the electric quadrupolar contribution is generally considered to be relatively small and neglected. Here we demonstrate that the electric quadrupolar contribution not only cannot be ignored, but also plays a key role in many cases. Particularly, for the chiral medium that…
Sensitivity to molecular chirality is crucial for many fields, from biology and chemistry to the pharmaceutical industry. By generating superchiral light, nanophotonics has brought innovative solutions to reduce the detection volume and increase sensitivity at the cost of a non-selectivity of light chirality or a strong contribution to the background. Here, we theoretically propose an achiral plasmonic resonator, based on a rectangular nanoslit in a thin gold layer behaving as a magnetic dipole, to generate a tunable nanosource of purely superchiral light. This nanosource is free of any backgr…
Electromagnetic response of metallic rod dimers is theoretically calculated for arbitrary planar arrangement of rods in the dimer. It is shown that dimers without an in-plane symmetry axis exhibit elliptical dichroism and act as "atoms" in planar chiral metamaterials. Due to a very simple geometry of the rod dimer, such planar metamaterials are much easier in fabrication than conventional split-ring or gammadion-type structures, and lend themselves to a simple analytical treatment based on coupled dipole model. Dependencies of metamaterial's directional asymmetry on the dimer's geometry are es…
To enable multiple functions of plasmonic nanocircuits, it is of key importance to control the propagation properties and the modal distribution of the guided optical modes such that their impedance matches to that of nearby quantum systems and desired light-matter interaction can be achieved. Here, we present efficient mode converters for manipulating guided modes on a plasmonic two-wire transmission line. The mode conversion is achieved through varying the path length, wire cross section and the surrounding index of refraction. Instead of pure optical interference, strong near-field coupling…
