Universal imprinting of chirality with chiral light by employing plasmonic metastructures

Chirality, either of light or matter, has proved to be very practical in biosensing and nanophotonics. However, the fundamental understanding of its temporal dynamics still needs to be discovered. A realistic setup for this are the so-called metastructures, since they are optically active and are built massively, hence rendering an immediate potential candidate. Here, we propose and study the electromagnetic-optical mechanism leading to chiral optical imprinting on metastructures. Induced photothermal responses create anisotropic permittivity modulations, different for left or right circularly polarized light, leading to temporal-dependent chiral imprinting of hot-spots, namely, imprinting of chirality. The above effect has not been observed yet, but it is within reach of modern experimental approaches. The proposed nonlinear chiroptical effect is general and should appear in any anisotropic material; however, we need to design a particular geometry for this effect to be strong. These new chiral time-dependent metastructures may lead to a plethora of applications.

Automated summary

Chirality, whether in light or matter, is proven to be practical for biosensing and nanophotonics. However, the understanding of its temporal dynamics is still lacking. Metastructures are proposed as a setup to explore this, as they are optically active and can be built massively. The proposed mechanism involves photothermal responses creating anisotropic permittivity modulations, leading to time-dependent chiral imprinting on metastructures. This effect has not been observed yet, but can be achieved through modern experimental approaches. The implications of these chiral time-dependent metastructures are vast and can lead to numerous applications.