We explore the interplay between tunneling process and chiral interactions in the discrimination of chiral states for an ensemble of molecules in a biological environment. Each molecule is described by an asymmetric double-well potential and the environment is modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillators. We carefully analyze different time-scales appearing in the resulting master equation at both...

We have studied the noise in the optical rotation of a linearly polarized laser beam transmitted through a spin-polarized (133)Cs vapor as a function of its frequency detuning from the optical resonance. Our measurements demonstrate the direct conversion of the laser-frequency noise into optical rotation noise by the dispersive response of the atomic vapor. We describe this noise-conversion pro...

2-Quinolone-4-carboxamide derived from (S)-proline, which exists as a mixture of two diastereomers before crystallization, converged to a single diastereomer by crystallization (CIDT), and the homochirality was transferred by a intermolecular 2 + 2 photocycloaddition reaction with high optical activity.

A method is proposed for the optical rotation of the spin of an electron in a quantum dot using excited trion states to implement operations significantly faster than those of most existing proposals. Key ingredients are the geometric phase induced by 2pi hyperbolic secant pulses, use of coherently trapped states and use of naturally dark states. Our proposal covers a variety of quantum dots by...

Thermal tuning of silicon-based one-dimensional photonic bandgap microcavities is demonstrated. Thermally induced spectral shifts are caused by both the host silicon matrix and the optically active material infiltrated inside the photonic bandgap structures. The active material leads to the dominant thermal tuning contribution but the effect of the silicon matrix cannot be neglected. The intera...

The influence of surface plasmons on the magneto-optic activity in a two-dimensional hexagonal array is addressed. The experiments were performed using hexagonal array of circular holes in a ferromagnetic Ni film. Well pronounced troughs are observed in the optical reflectivity, resulting from the presence of surface plasmons. The surface plasmons are found to strongly enhance the magneto-optic...

We present an experimental and computational study of the response of twisted-cross metamaterials that provide near dispersionless optical rotation across a broad band of frequencies from 19 GHz to 37 GHz. We compare two distinct geometries: firstly, a bilayer structure comprised of arrays of metallic crosses where the crosses in the second layer are twisted about the layer normal; and secondly...

Chiral molecules are characterized by a specific rotation angle, the angle through which plane-polarized light is rotated on passing through an enantiomerically enriched solution. Recent developments in methodology allow computation of both the sign and the magnitude of these rotation angles. However, a general strategy for assigning the individual contributions that atoms and functional groups...

For in vivo determination of optically active (chiral) substances in turbid media, like for example glucose in human tissue, the backscattering geometry is particularly convenient. However, recent polarimetric measurements performed in the backscattering geometry have shown that, in this geometry, the relatively small rotation of the polarization vector arising due to the optical activity of th...

Symmetry plays a fundamental role in chiral recognition and enantioselective catalysis. Porphyrins possess a number of structural features that make them attractive for the stereocontrol of chiral recognition and metal-catalyzed asymmetric reactions. This article is a brief account of our studies on chiral recognition and enantioselective catalysis by optically active metalloporphyrins. Some of...