Full Polarization Control of Optical Planar Waveguides with Chiral Material

Circularly polarized (CP) light is attracting growing interest in photonics, however it is not possible to use regular planar waveguides for the transmission of such CP light. While keeping the planar geometry, we conceived devices where the chirality of the propagation medium overcomes the planar symmetry. Thus, we report on the fabrication of chirowaveguides arising from the stacking of three layers of a new hybrid chiral organic modified silica (OrMoSil). A flexible strategy allows the control of the two main parameters impacting the ellipticity of the propagated waves. First, the high chirality of the transparent material is based on cheap and easy to access binaphthyl precursors simply shaped as films by dip-coating. Second, the refractive index (RI) contrast between the layers is finely tuned by TriEthOxySilane (TEOS) doping. The polarization of the two fundamental guided modes is measured on 2 cm long waveguides. We demonstrated that the polarization can be modulated from linear to nearly circular (80% ellipticity) depending on the RI contrast and the core thickness. These unprecedented achievements in the area of both optical materials and guided optics, open the way to fully integrated photonic devices dealing with CP light propagation

Au₁₀(SG)₁₀: A Chiral Gold Catenane Nanocluster with Zero Confined Electrons. Optical Properties and First-Principles Theoretical Analysis

We report facile synthesis of the Au₁₀(SG)₁₀ nanoclusters, where SG stands for glutathione, found to be promising as a new class of radiosensitizers for cancer radiotherapy. The homoleptic catenane structure with two Au₅SG₅ interconnected rings, among different isomer structures, gives the best agreement between theoretical and experimental optical spectra and XRD patterns. This catenane structure exhibits a centrosymmetry-broken structure, resulting in enhanced second harmonic response and new characteristic circular dichroism signals in the spectral region of 250–400 nm. This is the first determination of the nonlinear optical properties of a ligated cluster with an equal Au-to-ligand ratio, thus without a metallic core and therefore zero confined electrons. Insight into the nonlinear and chiroptical efficiencies arising from interplay between structural and electronic properties is provided by the TD-DFT approach