Robust chiral optical force via electric dipole interactions, inspired by a sea creature

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Cameron, Robert P. and McArthur, Duncan and Yao, Alison M. and Vogeley, Nick and Wang, Daqing (2024) Robust chiral optical force via electric dipole interactions, inspired by a sea creature. Other. arXiv, Ithaca, NY. (https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.13206)

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Abstract

Inspired by a sea creature, we identify a robust chiral optical force that pushes the opposite enantiomers of a chiral molecule towards regions of orthogonal linear polarization in an optical field via electric dipole interactions. Our chiral optical force can be orders of magnitude stronger than others proposed to date and applies to essentially all chiral molecules, including isotopically chiral varieties which are notoriously difficult to separate using existing methods. We propose a realistic experiment supported by full numerical simulations, potentially enabling optical separation of opposite enantiomers for the first time.

ORCID iDs

Cameron, Robert P. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8809-5459, McArthur, Duncan ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8603-8349, Yao, Alison M. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6260-5852, Vogeley, Nick and Wang, Daqing;
  • Item type:Monograph(Other)
    ID code:93801
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    3 December 2024
    Published
    Subjects:Science > Physics > Optics. Light
    Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:12 Aug 2025 14:40
    Last modified:10 Aug 2026 00:10
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/93801
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