Enhanced chiral discriminatory van der Waals interactions mediated by chiral surfaces

Abstract

We predict a discriminatory interaction between a chiral molecule and an achiral molecule which is mediated by a chiral body. To achieve this, we generalize the van der Waals interaction potential between two ground-state molecules with electric, magnetic and chiral response to non-trivial environments. The force is evaluated using second-order perturbation theory with an effective Hamiltonian. Chiral media enhance or reduce the free interaction via many-body interactions, making it possible to measure the chiral contributions to the van der Waals force with current technology. The van der Waals interaction is discriminatory with respect to enantiomers of different handedness and could be used to separate enantiomers. We also suggest a specific geometric configuration where the electric contribution to the van der Waals interaction is zero, making the chiral component the dominant effect.

7 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Thermal Casimir-Polder shifts in Rydberg atoms near metallic surfaces
• Body-assisted van der Waals interaction between two atoms
• Modified and controllable dispersion interaction in a 1D waveguide geometry
• The influence of a surface in the non-retarded interaction between two atoms

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Perspective: Quantum Hamiltonians for Optical Interactions
• Entanglement-Assisted Quantum Chiral Spectroscopy
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• Macroscopic quantum electrodynamics theory of resonance energy transfer involving chiral molecules
• Dissociation slowdown by collective optical response under strong coupling conditions
• Effective Hamiltonians in Nonrelativistic Quantum Electrodynamics
• Qualitative chirality effects on the Casimir-Lifshitz torque with liquid crystals
• Spectroscopic footprints of quantum friction in nonreciprocal and chiral media
• Requirements for probing chiral Casimir-Polder forces in a molecular Talbot-Lau interferometer