Optical chirality without optical activity: How surface plasmons give a twist to light

Abstract

Light interacts differently with left and right handed three dimensional chiral objects, like helices, and this leads to the phenomenon known as optical activity. Here, by applying a polarization tomography, we show experimentally, for the first time in the visible domain, that chirality has a different optical manifestation for twisted planar nanostructured metallic objects acting as isolated chiral metaobjects. Our analysis demonstrate how surface plasmons, which are lossy bidimensional electromagnetic waves propagating on top of the structure, can delocalize light information in the just precise way for giving rise to this subtle effect.

Opt. Express 16, 12559 (2008)

References in corpus (3)

• Circular conversion dichroism in planar chiral metamaterials
• Giant gyrotropy due to electromagnetic coupling
• Broken Time Reversal of Light Interaction with Planar Chiral Nanostructures

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• Angle-resolved cathodoluminescence imaging polarimetry
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• Asymmetric transmission in planar chiral split-ring metamaterials: Microscopic Lorentz-theory approach
• Interference Induced Asymmetric Transmission Through A Monolayer of Anisotropic Chiral Metamolecules
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• Lattice-plasmon induced asymmetric transmission in two-dimensional chiral arrays
• Highly efficient singular surface plasmon generation by achiral apertures
• Directional and singular surface plasmon generation in chiral and achiral nanostructures demonstrated by Leakage Radiation Microscopy