Single-handedness chiral optical cavities

Abstract

Geometrical chirality is a universal property encountered on very different length scales ranging from geometrical shapes of living organisms to protein and DNA molecules. Interaction of chiral matter with chiral light - that is, electromagnetic field possessing a certain handedness - underlies our ability to discriminate enantiomers of chiral molecules. In this context, it is often desired to have an optical cavity that efficiently couples to only a specific (right or left) molecular enantiomer, and does not couple to the opposite one. Here, we demonstrate a single-handedness chiral optical cavity supporting only an eigenmode of a given handedness and lacking modes having the opposite one. Resonant excitation of the cavity with light of appropriate handedness enables formation of a helical standing wave with a uniform chirality density, while the light of opposite handedness does not cause any resonant effects. Furthermore, only chiral emitters of the matching handedness efficiently interact with such a chiral eigenmode, enabling the handedness-selective strength of light-matter coupling. The proposed system expands the set of tools available for investigations of chiral matter and opens the door to studies of chiral electromagnetic vacuum.