Led by researchers from Cornell University in collaboration with Dr. Oriol Arteaga, an expert in light polarization from the Polarized Light Applications & Technologies (PLAT) group, the team has described a new technique to create chiroptic materials—materials that have a special interaction with circularly polarized light . They reported a method to form chiral films of three different inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals, with very strong circular dichroism and large homochiral domains.
The findings, published in Science Journal in January 2025, could transform current technologies that depend on the manipulation of light polarization, including sensors, data storage, and optical communication devices.
Article: Transforming achiral semiconductors into chiral domains with exceptional circular dichroism.
Thomas J. Ugras, River B. Carson, Reilly P. Lynch, Haoyang Li, Yuan Yao, Lorenzo Cupellini, Kirt A. , Da Wang, Arantxa Arbe, Sara Bals, Louisa Smieska, Arthur R. Woll, Oriol Arteaga, Tamás Jávorfi, Giuliano Siligardi, Gennaro Pescitelli, Steven J. Weinstein and Richard D. Robinson. Science, 31 Jan 2025, Vol 387. Issue 6733: DOI: 10.1126/science.ado7201
Image: A scanning electron micrograph of a chiral magic-sized cluster film. False color indicates right-handed (red), achiral (white), and left-handed (blue) domains. Kindly provided by Dr. Oriol Arteaga.