Implementation of an optical setup for investigating chiral nanophotonic structures

Chirality is inherent to Nature and happens on all scales from the fundamental biological building blocks up to the structure of galaxies. A pair of mirror-image molecules, called enantiomers, often give rise to tremendous differences in protein function, cell communication and organism health. The chirality of molecules is usually characterized via chiroptical effects using illumination with left and right circularly polarized light beams. However, due to the scale mismatch between the helical pitch of atoms in molecules and the wavelength of light, these chiroptical effects are inherently low and it remains challenging to sense and separate enantiomers. Recent advancements in nanophotonics offer solutions to overcome these limitations by enhancing chiral light-matter interactions by using chiral nanoparticles, metasurfaces or metamaterials. In this work, we report on the development of a setup dedicated to perform linear and nonlinear spectroscopy of chiral photonic nanostructures and on the investigation of the chiral behavior of selected nanophotonic platforms.

DDC Class

620: Engineering

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Implementation of an optical setup for investigating chiral nanophotonic structures