Chiro-optical microscopy — near-field and far-field

Prof. Hiromi Okamoto, Institute for Molecular Science (Japan)

Tutorial length: 1 hour

Description: Chiro-optical effects provide valuable information on the chirality of materials and are widely applied in research fields such as chemistry, materials physics, and biosciences. Chiro-optical spectroscopy, typified by circular dichroism and optical rotation, is therefore recognized as a powerful method for analyzing the chirality of materials. Despite its high potential, the application of chiro-optical spectroscopy is sometimes limited due to generally weak signals and interference from linear polarization effects. As a result, only a limited number of studies have been reported on chiro-optical imaging of inhomogeneous anisotropic samples. However, the development of chiro-optical microscopic imaging methods is expected to have a significant impact on a wide range of research fields related to chiral materials. In this tutorial, fundamental techniques of chiro-optical microscopy are reviewed, and applications of these methods to nano- and microscale materials, such as plasmonic materials and microcrystals, are presented.