Absolute chiral sensing in dielectric metasurfaces with signal reversals

TL;DR

This paper introduces a dielectric metasurface system capable of absolute chiral sensing at the nanoscale, overcoming previous limitations by enabling total chirality measurement and signal reversal, with significant signal enhancement demonstrated.

Contribution

The authors develop a dielectric metamaterial that allows absolute measurement of total molecular chirality and introduces a signal reversal technique for improved chiral sensing.

Findings

Achieved 200-fold signal enhancement for ultrathin chiral samples

Enabled absolute measurement of total chirality without sample removal

Demonstrated signal reversal for improved chirality detection

Abstract

Sensing molecular chirality at the nanoscale has been a long-standing challenge due to the inherently weak nature of chiroptical signals, and nanophotonic approaches have proven fruitful in accessing these signals. However, in most cases, absolute chiral sensing of the total chiral refractive index has not been possible, while the strong inherent signals from the nanostructures themselves obscure the weak chiroptical signals. Here, we propose a dielectric metamaterial system that overcomes these limitations and allows for absolute measurements of the total chirality, and the possibility for a crucial signal reversal that enables chirality measurements without the need for sample removal. As proof of principle, we demonstrate signal-enhancements by a factor of 200 for ultrathin, sub-wavelength, chiral samples over a uniform and accessible area.