Strong coupling of chiral light with chiral matter: a macroscopic study

TL;DR

This paper investigates how incorporating the Lorentz pole into macroscopic parameters of chiral media enhances strong coupling between chiral light and matter, with implications for optical detection of molecular handedness.

Contribution

It introduces a macroscopic model including the Lorentz pole in dielectric, magnetic, and chirality parameters to demonstrate chiral strong coupling phenomena.

Findings

Lorentz pole inclusion leads to chiral strong coupling

Coupling strength depends on medium and mode chirality

Potential for improved chiral optical detection

Abstract

Maximizing the interaction between chiral light and chiral matter is pivotal for the advancement of technologies enabling optical detection that distinguishes between different handedness in chiral organic molecules. One strategy involves developing a resonator that sustains photonic modes with non-zero electromagnetic handedness, which interact differently with chiral molecules of opposite enantiomers. When chiral molecules are positioned in resonator hotspots, they can alter the system's characteristics due to their inherent electric and magnetic transition dipole moments. In this study, we explore this interaction by incorporating the Lorentz pole into the macroscopic parameters of the chiral medium: dielectric permittivity, magnetic permeability, and chirality coefficient. The latter, also known as the Pasteur parameter, is a dimensionless macroscopic measure indicating the medium's chirality, interlinking electric and magnetic fields in the constitutive relations. We show that introducing the Lorentz pole into these macroscopic material parameters of the chiral medium results in chiral strong coupling between light and matter, with the strength of coupling determined by both the medium's chirality and the photonic mode's chirality.