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Chirality in Nature

Chirality in Nature

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.

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.
Chiral objects exhibit a sense of handedness when they interact with another chiral object. For example, our left foot can only fit in the left shoe and not in the right shoe. Achiral objects — objects that have...

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur

Chirality is most prevalent in carbon-based tetrahedral compounds, but this important facet of molecular symmetry extends to sp3-hybridized nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur centers, including trivalent molecules with lone pairs. Here, the lone pair behaves as a functional group in addition to the other three substituents to form an analogous tetrahedral center that can be chiral.
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...

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Updated: Apr 11, 2026

Assembly of Gold Nanorods into Chiral Plasmonic Metamolecules Using DNA Origami Templates

Assembly of Gold Nanorods into Chiral Plasmonic Metamolecules Using DNA Origami Templates

Published on: March 5, 2019

Active Chiral Plasmonics.

Xinghui Yin^1,2, Martin Schäferling¹, Ann-Katrin U Michel³

¹†4th Physics Institute and Research Center SCoPE, University of Stuttgart, 70550, Stuttgart, Germany.

|June 4, 2015

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Researchers developed a tunable chiral metamaterial using a phase change material. This allows for rapid switching of light’s handedness, enabling advanced polarization control for optical devices.

Keywords:

Switchable chirality metamaterial phase change material plasmonic tunable

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Area of Science:

Metamaterials
Plasmonics
Chirality
Mid-infrared optics

Background:

Controlling chiral metamaterial handedness is crucial for polarization engineering.
Mechanical reconfiguration is complex and limits high-speed applications.

Purpose of the Study:

To demonstrate a tunable and switchable mid-infrared plasmonic chiral metamaterial.
To achieve active control over chirality without geometrical reconfiguration.

Main Methods:

Utilized the phase change material Ge3Sb2Te6 (GST-326).
Designed a planar, layered structure combining passive and active chiral components.
Experimentally tuned the circular dichroism response.

Main Results:

Achieved a broad tunability range for circular dichroism from 4.15 to 4.90 μm.
Demonstrated switchable chirality, reversing the circular dichroism sign.
Proof-of-concept experiment validated the design.

Conclusions:

Phase change materials enable ultrafast modulation of chiral metamaterials.
The proposed design offers a path towards highly integrated, switchable mid-IR polarization devices.
Eliminates the need for intricate mechanical reconfiguration.