Locally and globally chiral fields for ultimate control of chiral light matter interaction

TL;DR

This paper introduces locally and globally chiral electric fields that enable highly efficient, background-free control and detection of chiral optical responses in molecules, significantly advancing chiral light-matter interaction capabilities.

Contribution

It presents a novel method to generate chiral electric fields that dramatically enhance control over chiral optical responses in molecules, surpassing previous magnetic-based approaches.

Findings

Full control over intensity, polarization, and direction of chiral responses.

Ability to suppress or enhance chiral signals depending on molecular handedness.

Potential for ultrafast imaging of chiral structures and dynamics.

Abstract

Light is one of the most powerful and precise tools allowing us to control, shape and create new phases of matter. In this task, the magnetic component of a light wave has so far played a unique role in defining the wave's helicity, but its influence on the optical response of matter is weak. Chiral molecules offer a typical example where the weakness of magnetic interactions hampers our ability to control the strength of their chiral optical response. It is limited several orders of magnitude below the full potential. Here we introduce freely propagating locally and globally chiral electric fields, which interact with chiral quantum systems extremely efficiently. To demonstrate the degree of control enabled by such fields, we focus on the nonlinear optical response of randomly oriented chiral molecules. We show full control over intensity, polarization and propagation direction of the chiral optical response, enabling its background-free detection. This response can be fully suppressed or enhanced at will depending on the molecular handedness, achieving the ultimate limit in chiral discrimination. Our findings open a way to extremely efficient control of chiral matter and to ultrafast imaging of chiral structure and dynamics in gases, liquids and solids.