- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Letters

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Novel Chiroptical Spectroscopy Technique

Jorge Olmos-Trigo1,*, Cristina Sanz-Fernández2, and Ivan Fernandez-Corbaton3

  • *Contact author: jolmostrigo@gmail.com
PDF

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 253802 – Published 24 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/crdw-pxcs

Abstract

Chiral objects typically exhibit a different extinction for the two circular polarizations of light. Researchers often detect the chirality of objects by measuring this extinction difference employing circular dichroism spectroscopy. In this Letter, we present a new spectroscopy technique for detecting the chirality of dipolar objects based on measuring the Stokes parameters at any nonforward angle. The chirality measure we introduce effectively eliminates achiral background noise and is independent of both the object’s concentration and the optical path length. Notably, when a solution contains both enantiomers of a chiral object, our method can discern which enantiomer predominates. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the technique is robust and verifiable in situ by measuring the Stokes vector at two different nonforward angles of choice.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (53)

  1. W. Lenz and K. Knapp, Arch. Environ. Health: Int. J. 5, 14 (1962).
  2. I. Fernandez-Corbaton, X. Zambrana-Puyalto, N. Tischler, X. Vidal, M. L. Juan, and G. Molina-Terriza, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 060401 (2013).
  3. L. D. Barron, Molecular Light Scattering and Optical Activity (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2009).
  4. S. Adhikari and M. Orrit, ACS Photonics 9, 3486 (2022).
  5. Y. Tang and A. E. Cohen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 163901 (2010).
  6. I. Sersic, C. Tuambilangana, T. Kampfrath, and A. F. Koenderink, Phys. Rev. B 83, 245102 (2011).
  7. P. Scott, X. Garcia-Santiago, D. Beutel, C. Rockstuhl, M. Wegener, and I. Fernandez-Corbaton, Appl. Phys. Rev. 7, 041413 (2020).
  8. C. F. Bohren, Chem. Phys. Lett. 29, 458 (1974).
  9. M. Yokota, S. He, and T. Takenaka, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 18, 1681 (2001).
  10. A. Canaguier-Durand, J. A. Hutchison, C. Genet, and T. W. Ebbesen, New J. Phys. 15, 123037 (2013).
  11. A. Hayat, J. B. Mueller, and F. Capasso, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112, 13190 (2015).
  12. M. Li, S. Yan, Y. Zhang, Y. Liang, P. Zhang, and B. Yao, Phys. Rev. A 99, 033825 (2019).
  13. V. Klimov, I. Zabkov, A. Pavlov, and D. Guzatov, Opt. Express 22, 18564 (2014).
  14. S. Wang and C. T. Chan, Nat. Commun. 5, 3307 (2014).
  15. M. Kamandi, M. Albooyeh, C. Guclu, M. Veysi, J. Zeng, K. Wickramasinghe, and F. Capolino, Phys. Rev. Appl. 8, 064010 (2017).
  16. A. A. Sifat, F. Capolino, and E. O. Potma, ACS Photonics 9, 2660 (2022).
  17. R. Ali, F. A. Pinheiro, R. S. Dutra, T. P. Mayer Alegre, and G. S. Wiederhecker, Phys. Rev. A 108, 043704 (2023).
  18. T. Kim and Q.-H. Park, Nanophotonics 11, 1897 (2022).
  19. M. Sadrara and M. Miri, J. Phys. Chem. C 128, 218 (2023).
  20. Y. Shi, T. Zhu, T. Zhang, A. Mazzulla, D. P. Tsai, W. Ding, A. Q. Liu, G. Cipparrone, J. J. Sáenz, and C.-W. Qiu, Light Sci. Appl. 9, 1 (2020).
  21. E. Mohammadi, T. Raziman, and A. G. Curto, Nano Lett. 23, 3978 (2023).
  22. J. Martínez-Romeu, I. Diez, S. Golat, F. J. Rodríguez-Fortuño, and A. Martínez, Nanophotonics 13, 4275 (2024).
  23. S. Golat, J. J. Kingsley-Smith, I. Diez, J. Martinez-Romeu, A. Martínez, and F. J. Rodríguez-Fortuño, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 023079 (2024).
  24. D. Tetour, M. Novotná, J. Tatýrek, V. Máková, M. Stuchlík, C. Hobbs, M. Rezanka, M. Müllerová, V. Setni vcka, K. Dob vsíková et al., Nanoscale 16, 6696 (2024).
  25. L. Onsager, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 58, 1486 (1936).
  26. J. D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1999).
  27. G. G. Stokes, Trans. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 9, 399 (1851).
  28. J. H. Crichton and P. L. Marston, Electron. J. Differ. Eqs. 4, 37 (2000).
  29. J. Olmos-Trigo, M. Nieto-Vesperinas, and G. Molina-Terriza, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 043192 (2024).
  30. T. Hinamoto, S. Hotta, H. Sugimoto, and M. Fujii, Nano Lett. 20, 7737 (2020).
  31. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/crdw-pxcs for (S1) derivation of the expression for the Stokes vector for spherical chiral nanoparticles, (S2) discussion of why chiral spherical objects can behave achirally, and (S3) the Stokes vector for chiral molecules modeled as nanohelices.
  32. M. Kerker, D.-S. Wang, and C. Giles, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 73, 765 (1983).
  33. J. Olmos-Trigo, D. R. Abujetas, C. Sanz-Fernández, X. Zambrana-Puyalto, N. de Sousa, J. A. Sánchez-Gil, and J. J. Sáenz, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 043021 (2020).
  34. J. Olmos-Trigo and X. Zambrana-Puyalto, Phys. Rev. Appl. 18, 044007 (2022).
  35. J. Olmos-Trigo, ACS Photonics 11, 3697 (2024).
  36. J. Olmos-Trigo, Nano Lett. 24, 8658 (2024).
  37. I. Lieberman, G. Shemer, T. Fried, E. M. Kosower, and G. Markovich, Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. Engl. 47, 4855 (2008).
  38. J. M. Slocik, A. O. Govorov, and R. R. Naik, Nano Lett. 11, 701 (2011).
  39. A. O. Govorov and Z. Fan, ChemPhysChem 13, 2551 (2012).
  40. B. M. Maoz, Y. Chaikin, A. B. Tesler, O. Bar Elli, Z. Fan, A. O. Govorov, and G. Markovich, Nano Lett. 13, 1203 (2013).
  41. X. Lan, X. Zhou, L. A. McCarthy, A. O. Govorov, Y. Liu, and S. Link, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 19336 (2019).
  42. A. Paul, M. Venturi, R. Adhikary, G. Salvitti, A. Toma, F. Di Stasio, H. Altug, P. Benassi, D. Tedeschi, C. Ferrante et al., arXiv:2506.15592.
  43. D. Vestler, A. Ben-Moshe, and G. Markovich, J. Phys. Chem. C 123, 5017 (2019).
  44. N. Siegel, H. Hasebe, G. Chiarelli, D. Garoli, H. Sugimoto, M. Fujii, G. P. Acuna, and K. Kolataj, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 146, 17250 (2024).
  45. D. Jaggard, A. Mickelson, and C. Papas, Appl. Phys. 18, 211 (1979).
  46. S. F. Mason, Q. Rev. Chem. Soc. 17, 20 (1963).
  47. Measurement of Vibrational Circular Dichroism Spectra Using the FVS-6000 (Jasco International Co., Ltd., 2011).
  48. W. Salzman and P. Polavarapu, Chem. Phys. Lett. 179, 1 (1991).
  49. L. D. Barron, Molecular Light Scattering and Optical Activity (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2004), 2nd ed.
  50. A. Sihvola, A. Viitanen, I. Lindell, and S. Tretyakov, Electromagnetic Waves in Chiral and Bi-Isotropic Media (Artech House, 1994).
  51. X. Vidal, I. Fernandez-Corbaton, A. F. Barbara, and G. Molina-Terriza, Appl. Phys. Lett. 107, 211107 (2015).
  52. H. Negoro, H. Sugimoto, and M. Fujii, Nano Lett. 23, 5101 (2023).
  53. H. Sugimoto, T. Okazaki, and M. Fujii, Adv. Opt. Mater. 8, 2000033 (2020).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 253802– Published 24 June, 2026
  • Received 25 June 2025
  • Revised 9 February 2026
  • Accepted 2 March 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation