Structuring the local handedness of synthetic chiral light: global chirality versus polarization of chirality

TL;DR

This paper explores how synthetic chiral light can be structured in space to encode local and global handedness, enabling advanced ultrafast imaging of molecular chirality through novel optical effects.

Contribution

It introduces methods to structure the local and global handedness of synthetic chiral light and links these properties to enantio-sensitive molecular responses.

Findings

Structured local and global chirality affects molecular response.

Synthetic chiral light enables enantio-selective imaging.

New optical phenomena like enantio-sensitive light bending are demonstrated.

Abstract

Synthetic chiral light enables ultrafast and highly efficient imaging of molecular chirality. Unlike standard circularly polarized light, the handedness of synthetic chiral light does not rely on the spatial structure of the light field: it is encoded locally, in the chiral trajectory that the tip of the electric-field vector draws in time, at each point in space. Being locally chiral, already within the electric-dipole approximation, synthetic chiral light is a highly efficient chiral photonic reagent. Synthetic chiral light that is locally and globally chiral allows us to selectively quench the nonlinear response of a selected molecular enantiomer while maximizing it in its mirror twin at the level of total signal intensities. Synthetic chiral light that exhibits polarization of chirality allows us to realize a chiral version of Young's double-slit experiment that leads to enantio-sensitive light bending. Here we connect these two new concepts and show how one can structure the local and global handedness of synthetic chiral light in space, and how these local and global properties are imprinted in the enantio-sensitive response of the chiral molecules, creating new opportunities for ultrafast, all-optical and highly efficient imaging of molecular chirality.