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Light-Nanomatter Chiral Interaction in Optical-Force Effects

Ishihara, H., Hoshina, M., Yamane, H., Yokoshi, N.,
Topics in Applied Physics

Abstract

The interaction between chiral objects and chiral environment is a fundamental topic in various research domains such as chemistry, material physics, optics, and bioscience. Particularly, the chiral interplay between light and nanostructures has been a fascinating topic because of its potential applications in chemical analyses, molecular sensing, novel light sources, and optical manipulations with high degree of freedom. Further, the study of relevant subjects will shed light on the unconventional fundamentals of light–matter interaction where the nanoscale spatial correlation between the light and matter geometries plays an essential role therein, which is beyond the conventional picture of optical response based on the long wavelength approximation of light or dipole approximation of matter systems. In this chapter, we introduce the recent theoretical studies on light–nanomatter chiral interactions, focusing on two topics in optical-force effects. The first topic is a scheme to measure the circular dichroism (CD) of the chiral near field in the vicinity of metallic nanostructures. This scheme evaluates the CD by measuring the optical force that acts on the probe tip with the circularly polarized lights irradiated. The second topic is the proposal of the rotational-motion control of nanoparticles in a nanoscale area by using the optical force generated through the interaction between a chiral light field (optical vortex) and a metallic nanocomplex. The results revealed the unique role of the optical force in the studies of the light–nanomatter chiral interaction.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-62844-4_5