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Chirality

Chirality

Chirality is a term that describes the lack of mirror symmetry in an object. In other words, chiral objects cannot be superposed on their mirror images. For example, our feet are chiral, as the mirror image of the left foot, the right foot, cannot be superposed on the left foot.
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Prochirality

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Chirality is the most intriguing yet essential facet of nature, governing life’s biochemical processes and precision. It can be observed from a snail shell pattern in a macroscopic world to an amino acid, the minutest building block of life. Most of the snails around the world have right-coiled shells because of the intrinsic chirality in their genes. All the amino acids present in the human body exist in an enantiomerically pure state, except for glycine - the sole achiral amino acid. The...

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Circular dichroism in planar nonchiral plasmonic metamaterials.

Vassilios Yannopapas¹

¹Department of Materials Science, School of Natural Sciences, University of Patras, Patras, Greece. vyannop@upatras.gr

|March 3, 2009

Summary

A nonchiral metallic sphere array shows optical activity, leading to circular dichroism. This effect arises from the rectangular lattice symmetry and specific polarization modes, creating a chiral triad.

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Area of Science:

Condensed matter physics
Plasmonics
Optical metamaterials

Background:

Nonchiral structures typically do not exhibit optical activity.
Plasmon resonances in metallic nanostructures can lead to unique optical phenomena.
Lattice symmetry plays a crucial role in determining material properties.

Purpose of the Study:

To theoretically investigate the origin of optical activity in a nonchiral, two-dimensional metallic sphere array.
To explain the manifestation of circular dichroism in such structures.
To identify the underlying physical mechanism responsible for the observed optical effects.

Main Methods:

Theoretical calculations of circular dichroism.
Analysis of optical properties for off-normal incidence.
Investigation of polarization modes within the rectangular lattice.

Main Results:

A nonchiral, two-dimensional array of metallic spheres exhibits optical activity.
Strong circular dichroism effects are observed near surface-plasmon frequencies for off-normal incidence.
The rectangular lattice symmetry leads to distinct polarization modes.

Conclusions:

The observed circular dichroism in the nonchiral structure originates from the interplay between lattice symmetry and polarization modes.
A chiral triad, formed by the net polar vector, wave vector, and surface normal, is responsible for the optical activity.
This study demonstrates that optical activity can arise in intrinsically nonchiral systems due to structural symmetries.