Circularly polarized light (CPL) exerts a force of different magnitude on left- and right-handed enantiomers, an effect that could be exploited for chiral resolution of chemical compounds as well as controlled assembly of chiral nanostructures. However, enantioselective optical forces are challenging to control and quantify because their magnitude is extremely small (sub-piconewton) and varies ...

Optical scanning microscopy techniques based on the polarization control of light have capability providing non invasive label-free contrast. By comparing states excitation with its transformation after interaction sample, full optical properties can be summarized in a single 4×4 Mueller matrix. The main challenge such technique is to encode and decode polarized an optimal way pixel-by-pixel ta...

We have developed a second-harmonic-generation (SHG) microscopy system whose electric filed at the focus is controlled three-dimensionally in order to observe three-dimensional molecular orientation with high spatial resolution. Figure 1 shows the developed system. The system consists of a femtosecond laser to induced nonlinear optical phenomenon (SHG), a parallel-aligned liquid-crystal spatial...

New advances in polarized light microscopy were used to image Congo red-stained cerebral amyloidosis in sharp relief. The rotating-polarizer method was used to separate the optical effects of transmission, linear birefringence, extinction, linear dichroism, and orientation of the electric dipole transition moments and to display them as false-color maps. These effects are typically convolved in...

Circularly polarized light is utilized in various optical techniques and devices. However, using conventional optical systems to generate, analyse and detect circularly polarized light involves multiple optical elements, making it challenging to realize miniature and integrated devices. While a number of ultracompact optical elements for manipulating circularly polarized light have recently bee...

With advances in nanotechnology, emerging plasmonic nano-optical applications, such as all-optical magnetic recording, require circularly-polarized electromagnetic radiation beyond the diffraction limit. In this study, a plasmonic cross-dipole nano-antenna is investigated to obtain a circularly polarized near-field optical spot with a size smaller than the diffraction limit of light. The perfor...

an important property of electromagnetic fields, which arises from the interaction between fields and chiral molecules, is called optical chirality. by enhancing this field property, while maintaining constant input power, we are able to increase absorption of circularly polarized light by chiral molecules of a certain handedness. this enhancement is achieved through the use of achiral plasmoni...