The influence of chiral spherical particles on the radiation of optically active molecules

TL;DR

This paper develops a quantum electrodynamics framework to analyze how chiral spherical particles influence the spontaneous emission and photon structure of nearby optically active molecules, revealing significant effects even with small chirality.

Contribution

It provides exact analytical formulas for the emission rates of chiral molecules near chiral spherical particles, demonstrating the potential to control molecular radiation using chiral nanostructures.

Findings

Chiral spherical particles significantly alter photon structure compared to TE/TM modes.

Small chirality in dielectric spheres has a substantial impact on emission.

Chiral particles enable effective control of optically active molecule radiation.

Abstract

In the framework of the perturbation theory of the nonrelativistic quantum electrodynamics, a theory of spontaneous emission of a chiral molecule located near a chiral (bi-isotropic) spherical particle is developed. It is shown that the structure of photons in the presence of chiral spherical particles differs significantly from the structure of TE or TM photons. Exact analytical expressions for the spontaneous emission radiative decay rate of a chiral molecule with arbitrary electric and magnetic dipole moments of transition located near a chiral spherical particle with arbitrary parameters are obtained and analyzed in details. Simple asymptotes for the case of a nanoparticle are obtained. Substantial influence of even small chirality on a dielectric or "left-handed" sphere is found. It is shown that by using chiral spherical particles it is possible to control effectively the radiation of enantiomers of optically active molecules.