Asymmetric Transmission of Light and Enantiomerically Sensitive Plasmon Resonance in Planar Chiral Nanostructures

• Published in: Nano letters 2007-07, Vol.7 (7), p.1996-1999
• Main Authors: Fedotov, V. A, Schwanecke, A. S, Zheludev, N. I, Khardikov, V. V, Prosvirnin, S. L
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations); Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Condensed matter: structure, mechanical and thermal properties; Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures; Exact sciences and technology; Fullerenes and related materials; Low-dimensional structures (superlattices, quantum well structures, multilayers): structure, and nonelectronic properties; Optical properties and condensed-matter spectroscopy and other interactions of matter with particles and radiation; Physics; Surface and interface electron states; Surfaces and interfaces; thin films and whiskers (structure and nonelectronic properties); Visible and ultraviolet spectra
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl0707961

We show that in the visible to near-IR part of the spectrum, normal incidence transmission of circularly polarized light through a nanostructured anisotropic planar chiral metamaterial is asymmetric in the opposite directions. The new effect is fundamentally different from the conventional gyrotropy of bulk chiral media and the Faraday effect. It has a resonance nature associated with a new type of excitation in the metal nanostructure:  the enantiomerically sensitive plasmon.