The angular momentum of twisted light in anisotropic media: chiroptical interactions in chiral and achiral materials

Forbes, Kayn A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8884-3496 and Andrews, David L. (2018) The angular momentum of twisted light in anisotropic media: chiroptical interactions in chiral and achiral materials. In: Proceedings of SPIE. SPIE Press.

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Abstract

The issue of whether the optical orbital angular momentum of light can play any significant role in chiroptical interactions has seen a resurgence of interest in the past few years. Revising preliminary expectations, it has been shown both theoretically and experimentally that the topological charge can indeed play a decisive role in some chiroptical interactions, with the rates of these optical phenomena proving sensitive to the sign of the vortex charge. Using quantum electro- dynamics, it is now revealed how the inclusion of molecular electric-quadrupole transition moments in both chiral and achiral anisotropic media produces such an effect. Specifically, for single-photon absorption it transpires that both the orbital and spin angular momentum must be engaged through a circularly polarized vortex beam. The chiroptical effect is identified as a manifestation spin-orbit interaction in light.

Item Type:	Book Section
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Chemistry
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Chemistry of Light and Energy Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Photonics and Quantum Science
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	17 May 2018 10:30
Last Modified:	09 Feb 2023 13:31
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/67108
DOI:	10.1117/12.2305723

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