Tailoring Enhanced Optical Chirality: Design Principles for Chiral Plasmonic Nanostructures

Electromagnetic fields with strong optical chirality can be formed in the near field of chiral plasmonic nanostructures. We calculate and visualize the degree of chirality to identify regions with relatively high values. This analysis leads to design principles for a simple utilization of chiral fields. We investigate planar geometries, which offer a convenient way to access the designated fields, as well as three-dimensional nanostructures, which show a very high local optical chirality.