Robust Chiral Optical Force via Electric Dipole Interactions, Inspired by a Sea Creature

Abstract:Inspired by a sea creature, we identify a robust chiral optical force that can be several orders of magnitude stronger than others proposed to date, pushing the opposite enantiomers of orientated chiral molecules towards regions of orthogonal linear rather than circular polarization in an optical field via electric dipole interactions. Our chiral optical force applies off resonance to essentially all chiral molecules, including isotopically chiral species which are notoriously difficult to resolve using existing methods. We conclude by proposing a realistic experiment supported by numerical simulations. This work could enable the first demonstration of a chiral optical force for individual chiral molecules and thus the first non-destructive enantioseparation using light.

Optics (physics.optics); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

arXiv:2412.13206 [physics.optics]

(or arXiv:2412.13206v2 [physics.optics] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.13206 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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