Diffraction gratings for chiral molecules and their applications

J Phys Chem A. 2014 May 15;118(19):3472-8. doi: 10.1021/jp500319x. Epub 2014 Apr 7.

Abstract

We suggest the use of certain readily producible types of light to exert a force that points in opposite directions for the enantiomers of a chiral molecule and propose multiple devices based upon this novel manifestation of optical activity: in particular, our discriminatory chiral diffraction grating; a device that could be employed, for example, to measure the enantiomeric excess of a sample of chiral molecules simply and to high precision. Our work is relevant for many types of molecules and our proposed devices may be realizable using currently existing technology.