Helical polymers for dissymmetric circularly polarized light imaging.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Quantum Optics
• Polymer Chemistry

Background:

• Controlling photon spin angular momentum (SAM) is crucial for quantum networks and spintronics.
• Existing chiral materials (e.g., molecular crystals, nanostructures) face challenges like weak optical activity, inhomogeneity, brittleness, and integration difficulties.
• These limitations hinder the development of practical chiroptical quantum devices and on-chip SAM detection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel method for fabricating flexible, homogeneous chiroptical layers.
• To enable tunable, broad-spectral optical activity and enhanced polarization-dependent absorbance.
• To facilitate scalable, on-chip detection and visualization of photon SAM for quantum information processing and imaging.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of chiroptical flexible layers via supramolecular helical ordering of conjugated polymer chains.
• Chiral templating with volatile enantiomers to control multiscale chirality and optical activity across a broad spectral range.
• Template removal to yield one-dimensional helical nanofibrils with stacked chromophores.

Main Results:

• Achieved homogeneous chiroptical layers with drastically enhanced polarization-dependent absorbance.
• Demonstrated well-resolved detection and visualization of photon spin angular momentum (SAM).
• Showcased tunable chirality and optical activity by varying chiral templates.

Conclusions:

• The developed method offers a direct path to scalable realization of on-chip photon SAM detection.
• This advancement is essential for encoded quantum information processing and high-resolution polarization imaging.
• The flexible, tunable chiroptical layers overcome limitations of previous materials for chiroptical quantum devices.