Chiroptical Second-Harmonic Tyndall Scattering from Silicon Nanohelices.

ABSTRACT: Chirality is omnipresent in the living world. As biomimetic nanotechnology and self-assembly advance, they too need chirality. Accordingly, there is a pressing need to develop general methods to characterize chiral building blocks at the nanoscale in liquids such as water─the medium of life. Here, we demonstrate the chiroptical second-harmonic Tyndall scattering effect. The effect was observed in Si nanohelices, an example of a high-refractive-index dielectric nanomaterial. For three wavelengths of illumination, we observe a clear difference in the second-harmonic scattered light that depends on the chirality of the nanohelices and the handedness of circularly polarized light. Importantly, we provide a theoretical analysis that explains the origin of the effect and its direction dependence

SUBMITTER: Olohan BJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11223486 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature