Intrinsic dichroism in amorphous and crystalline solids with helical light

Amorphous solids do not exhibit long-range order due to the disordered arrangement of atoms. They lack translational and rotational symmetry on a macroscopic scale and are therefore isotropic. As a result, differential absorption of polarized light, called dichroism, is not known to exist in amorphous solids. Using helical light beams that carry orbital angular momentum as a probe, we demonstrate that dichroism is intrinsic to both amorphous and crystalline solids. We show that in the nonlinear regime, helical dichroism is responsive to the short-range order and its origin is explained in terms of interband multiphoton assisted tunneling. We also demonstrate that the helical dichroism signal is sensitive to chirality and its strength can be controlled and tuned using a superposition of OAM and Gaussian beams. Our research challenges the conventional knowledge that dichroism does not exist in amorphous solids and enables to manipulate the optical properties of solids.