Photothermal Effect and Circular Dichroism in Chiral Plasmonic Metamaterials and Bolometers

Chiral nanostructures have already shown their promising chiro-optical properties in many areas of plasmonic science and photonics. Simultaneously, plasmonic nanostructures are suitable tools to efficiently enhance light absorption and increase temperature as a result of the light-matter interaction. In this project, we couple chirality and a strong plasmonic photothermal effect to present a new type of chiral spectroscopy. We utilize the idea of chiral planar superabsorber to enhance the chiro-optical effect. Our simulation models show that the hybrid nanostructure introduces high chiral light sensitivity that leads to the polarization-sensitive local temperature distributions and to strong photothermal circular dichroism in a nanostructure. These ideas can be applied for polarization-sensitive photochemistry, plasmonic thermal switches and chiral bolometers [1].
[1] X. Kong, et. al., Nano Letters. 18, 3, 2001-2008, 2018