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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.
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 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.

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

Molecules with Multiple Chiral Centers

Molecules that possess multiple chiral centers can afford a large number of stereoisomers. For instance, while some molecules like 2-butanol have one chiral center, defined as a tetrahedral carbon atom with four different substituents attached, several molecules like butane-2,3-diol have multiple chiral centers. A simple formula to predict the number of stereoisomers possible for a molecule with n chiral centers is 2n. However, there can be a lower number where some of the stereoisomers are...

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...

Chemical Formulas

Chemical Formulas

A chemical formula presents information about the proportions of atoms constituting a particular chemical compound or molecule, mainly using symbols of elements and numbers. At times other symbols, such as dashes, parentheses, brackets, commas, plus, and minus signs, are also used. A chemical formula can be one of three types – molecular, empirical, and structural.

Elements: Chemical Symbols and Isotopes

Elements: Chemical Symbols and Isotopes

A chemical symbol is an abbreviation used to indicate an element or an atom of an element. For example, the symbol for mercury is Hg. The same symbol is used to indicate one atom of mercury (microscopic domain) or to label a container of many atoms of the element mercury (macroscopic domain).
Some symbols are derived from the common English name of the element; others are abbreviations of the name in another language — Latin, Greek or German. For example, the symbol for aluminum (common name)...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Measurement of Scattering Nonlinearities from a Single Plasmonic Nanoparticle

Measurement of Scattering Nonlinearities from a Single Plasmonic Nanoparticle

Published on: January 3, 2016

Chiral Scatterometry on Chemically Synthesized Single Plasmonic Nanoparticles.

Julian Karst¹, Nam Heon Cho², Hyeohn Kim²

¹4th Physics Institute and Research Center SCoPE , University of Stuttgart , Pfaffenwaldring 57 , 70569 Stuttgart , Germany.

|July 12, 2019

Summary

Single particle chiral scatterometry effectively characterizes nanoparticle synthesis quality. This optical method reveals higher asymmetry in individual nanoparticles than in bulk samples, guiding improved fabrication.

Keywords:

chemical nanoparticle synthesis chiral nanoparticles chiral spectroscopy chirality plasmonics scatterometry single particle

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Area of Science:

Nanotechnology and Materials Science
Optical Physics
Chemical Synthesis

Background:

Large-scale nanoparticle fabrication is crucial for widespread applications.
Bottom-up synthesis offers scalability and control over nanoparticle morphology, including chiral shapes.
Current quality assessment relies on imaging techniques like electron microscopy, not optical properties.

Purpose of the Study:

To demonstrate single particle chiral scatterometry as a feedback tool for assessing the (chir-)optical quality of chemically synthesized nanoparticles.
To compare the chiroptical responses of individual nanoparticles with ensemble measurements.
To highlight the potential of chiral scatterometry for optimizing nanoparticle synthesis.

Main Methods:

Chemically synthesized helicoid nanoparticles were analyzed using single particle chiral scatterometry.
Chiroptical responses and spectral features of individual nanoparticles were measured.
The g-factor (degree of asymmetry in chiral light scattering) was determined for single particles and compared to ensemble averages.

Main Results:

Single particle spectra revealed diverse chiroptical responses and varying chiral asymmetry, even with controlled morphology.
Averaging single particle data accurately reproduced ensemble measurements.
The g-factor for single nanoparticles was up to 4 times greater than for the ensemble.

Conclusions:

Single particle chiral scatterometry is a powerful optical feedback method for nanoparticle synthesis.
It highlights significant variations in chiral asymmetry at the single-particle level.
This technique can guide refinement and purification strategies to maximize the optical asymmetry of nanoparticle ensembles.