Orientation dependence of optical activity in light scattering by nanoparticle clusters

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the optical activity of nanoparticle clusters depends on their orientation relative to incident light, emphasizing the importance of orientation averaging in modeling their chiroptical responses.

Contribution

It introduces a rigorous superposition T-matrix method to analytically compute orientation-averaged optical properties of nanoparticle clusters.

Findings

Optical responses vary significantly with cluster orientation.

The superposition T-matrix method provides exact orientation-averaged properties.

Different geometries show distinct angular dependencies.

Abstract

The optical properties of nanoparticle clusters vary with the spatial arrangement of the constituent particles, but also the overall orientation of the cluster with respect to the incident light. This is particularly important in the context of nanoscale chirality and associated chiroptical responses, such as circular dichroism or differential scattering of circularly polarised light in the far-field, or local degree of optical chirality in the near-field. We explore the angular dependence of such quantities for a few archetypal geometries: a dimer of gold nanorods, a helix of gold nanospheres, and a linear chain of silicon particles. The examples serve to illustrate the possible variation of chiroptical responses with the direction of light's incidence, but also, consequently, the importance of a robust orientation-averaging procedure when modelling general clusters of particles in random orientation. Our results are obtained with the rigorous superposition T-matrix method, which provides analytical formulas for exact orientation-averaged properties.