Optical Chirality at the Nanoscale

Chirality, the lack of the mirror symmetry, is a common property of the molecular world. At the nanoscale, chirality determines the biological activity, reactions, and toxicity of many molecules. Nowadays, ultrasensitive chiral sensors are required in pharmaceutical, agrochemical industries, and medicinal applications. The development of nanotechnology and nanophotonics has facilitated novel possibilities in engineering materials at the nanoscale that enhance chiral light-matter interaction. Aside from sensing, chirality at the nanoscale offers new degrees of freedom for the control of light polarization and directivity, thus leading to the development of chip-scale optical components for applications in both optical and quantum information. Self-assembled fabrication has been used to obtain sophisticated nanostructures exhibiting chiral or asymmetric dimensions at low-cost. Finally, chirality can be introduced even in achiral structures through removing the symmetry in the experimental set-up, inducing exotic near- and far-field chiro-optical phenomena.

Recent research with respect to chirality at the nanoscale involves a multidisciplinary approach including numerical design (novel nanostructured platforms), nanofabrication, chiral synthesis, as well as far-field and near-field characterization techniques. State-of-the-art components are now ready to be combined into systematic studies for real life applications, which we foresee developing in two primary directions. Firstly, improved chiral sensors will be based on the enhanced, near-field interaction of nanostructures with chiral molecules; novel platform design, theoretical treatment of the coupling, and ultrasensitive characterization are required to facilitate enhanced enantioselectivity. Secondly, chip-scale photonic components such as light sources exhibiting tunable polarization degree, polarizers, chiral mirrors etc. will be developed by mimicking chiral shapes at the nanoscale, or by breaking the symmetry exhibited by the modes supported by the nanostructure. Moreover, aside from conventional transmission/reflection measurements, unconventional techniques such as the use of photothermal effects, fluorescence-enhanced circular dichroism, and probing of the near-field chirality may be proposed for chiro-optical characterization.

This Research Topic particularly encourages the submission of research papers focusing on, but not restricted to:

- Design and investigation of new nanostructures, their properties, and the schemes for detection of chiral response
- Synthesis of chiral nanomaterials
- Chiral Plasmonic Nanostructures
- Chirality-Induced Spin Selectivity
- Circular dichroism
- Chiral Photonics
- Self-Assembled Chiral Nanostructures
- Chiral catalysis and enantioselective reactions.
- Chiral interfaces

Keywords: Chiral nanomaterials, Circular dichroism, Chiral catalysis, Sensors, Plasmonics

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.