Chiral nanoparticles in singular light fields

Nanoparticle-based Chemiluminescence for Chiral Discrimination of Thiol-Containing Amino Acids

The ability to recognize the molecular chirality of enantiomers is extremely important owing to their critical role in drug development and biochemistry. Convenient discrimination of enantiomers has remained a challenge due to lack of unsophisticated methods. In this work, we have reported a simple strategy for chiral recognition of thiol-containing amino acids including penicillamine (PA), and cysteine (Cys). We have successfully designed a nanoparticle-based chemiluminescence (CL) system based on the reaction between cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs) and the enantiomers. The different interactions of CdTe QDs with PA enantiomers or Cys enantiomers led to different CL intensities, resulting in the chiral recognition of these enantiomers. The developed method showed the ability for determination of enantiomeric excess of PA and Cys. It has also obtained an enantioselective concentration range from 1.15 to 9.2 mM for PA. To demonstrate the potential application of this method, the designed platform was applied for the quantification of PA in urine and tablet samples. For the first time, we presented a novel practical application of nanoparticle-based CL system for chiral discrimination.

Optical Activity of Semiconductor Gammadions beyond Planar Chirality

We present rigorous analysis of optical activity of chiral semiconductor gammadions whose chirality in three dimensions is caused by the nonuniformity of thickness in the transverse plane. It is shown that such gammadions not only distinguish between the two circular polarizations upon scattering and reflection of light, like all two-dimensional semiconductor nanostructures with planar chirality do, but also exhibit circular dichroism and circularly polarized luminescence. Chiral semiconductor gammadions whose charge carriers are mostly confined to the arms are found to feature both high dissymmetry of optical response and a constant-sign circular dichroism signal over a wide frequency range. It is also shown that the strength of the gammadion's chiroptical response is determined solely by two geometric factors: the variation range of the gammadion's thickness and the arms' curvature. Our seminal theoretical study is intended to lay the foundation for future applications of semiconductor gammadions in chiral nanophotonics and nanotechnology.

Analytical theory of real-argument Laguerre-Gaussian beams beyond the paraxial approximation

We study the propagation of real-argument Laguerre-Gaussian beams beyond the paraxial approximation using the perturbation corrections to the complex-argument Laguerre-Gaussian beams derived earlier by Takenaka et al. [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A2, 826 (1985)JOAOD60740-323210.1364/JOSAA.2.000826]. Each higher-order correction to the amplitude of the real-argument beam (l, m) is represented as a superposition of the same-order corrections to the amplitudes of the complex-argument beams (l, q) with q=0,1,2,…,m. We derive explicit expressions for the electric and magnetic fields of transversely and longitudinally polarized real-argument beams and calculate the chirality densities of these beams up to the fourth order of the smallness parameter. For the first time to the best of our knowledge, we show that essentially achiral Gaussian beams (corresponding to l=m=0) possess nonzero chirality density due to the wavefront curvature. The obtained corrections to the paraxial beams may prove useful for precise laser beam shaping and in studies of optomechanical forces.

Chiral Optical Properties of Tapered Semiconductor Nanoscrolls

Large surface-to-volume ratio, one-dimensional quantum confinement, and strong optical activity make chiral nanoscrolls ideal for the detection and sensing of small chiral molecules. Here, we present a simple physical model of chiroptical phenomena in multilayered tapered semiconductor nanoscrolls. Our model is based on a linear transformation of coordinates, which converts nanoscrolls into flat but topologically distorted nanoplatelets whose optical properties can then be treated analytically. As an illustrative application example, we analyze absorption and circular dichroism spectra of CdSe nanoscrolls using an eight-band model of CdSe. We show that the optical activity of the nanoscrolls originates from the chiral distortion of their crystal lattice and determine selection rules for the optically active interband transitions. The results of our study may prove useful for the modeling and design of semiconductor nanoscrolls and nanoscroll-based materials.