Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 1, 2026

Interfacial Molecular-level Structures of Polymers and Biomacromolecules Revealed via Sum Frequency Generation Vibrational Spectroscopy
Published on: August 13, 2019
Enhanced Chiral Discriminatory van der Waals Interactions Mediated by Chiral Surfaces
Pablo Barcellona1, Hassan Safari2, A Salam3
1Physikalisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Straße 3, 79104 Freiburg, Germany.
Abstract:
We predict a discriminatory interaction between a chiral molecule and an achiral molecule which is mediated by a chiral body. To achieve this, we generalize the van der Waals interaction potential between two ground-state molecules with electric, magnetic, and chiral response to nontrivial environments. The force is evaluated using second-order perturbation theory with an effective Hamiltonian. Chiral media enhance or reduce the free interaction via many-body interactions, making it possible to measure the chiral contributions to the van der Waals force with current technology. The van der Waals interaction is discriminatory with respect to enantiomers of different handedness and could be used to separate enantiomers. We also suggest a specific geometric configuration where the electric contribution to the van der Waals interaction is zero, making the chiral component the dominant effect.
Related Concept Videos
Chirality in Nature
Prochirality
Chirality
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...
Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers
Properties of Enantiomers and Optical Activity
Chirality at Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur
A consequence of chirality is the need for enantiomeric resolution. While this is theoretically possible for all...

