Twisted nanorods are 10X stronger than best circular polarizers

Aug. 6, 2013
An international team of researchers has demonstrated that slightly twisted pairs of gold nanorods have a circular polarizing effect on light that is ten times stronger than the best liquid-crystal-based circular polarizers.

Researchers from Jiangnan University (Wuxi, China), the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), and Rice University (Houston, TX) have demonstrated that slightly twisted pairs of gold nanorods have a circular polarizing effect on light that is ten times stronger than the best liquid-crystal-based circular polarizers.

A pair of gold nanorods, bound to each other by strands of DNA or by oppositely charged ions, becomes slightly twisted. The small dihedral angle between two adjacent nanorods breaks the centrosymetric nature of the two identical cylinders, inducing chiral properties. This twist creates geometric chirality of the nanorod pair and introduces a spin in light waves passing through it that is so strong, it can be observed with a single pair of nanorods. The scientists demonstrated that the twist of nanorod pairs in a clockwise direction leads to levo-rotating enantiomers, while the counter-clockwise direction results in light rotation in the opposite direction. For a given nanorod length and aspect ratio, the chiral optical activity is the greatest for nanorod pairs with equal length. The gold nanorods for the experiment were prepared using a standard seeded-growth method, with assembly triggered by the hybridization of DNA oligomers in a standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) process. The scientists are working on applications of nanorod pairs for detection of cancer markers and environmental threats. Contact Nick Kotov at [email protected].

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.

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