Understanding complex chiral plasmonics

Abstract

Chiral nanoplasmonics exhibits great potential for novel nanooptical devices due to the generation of a strong chiroptical response within nanoscale metallic structures. Recently, a number of different approaches have been utilized to create chiral nanoplasmonic structures. However, particularly for tailoring nanooptical chiral sensing devices, the understanding of the resulting chiroptical response when coupling chiral and achiral structures together is crucial and has not been completely understood to date. Here, we present a thorough and step-by-step experimental study to understand the intriguing chiral–achiral coupling scheme. We set up a hybrid plasmonic system, which bears resemblance to the ‘host–guest’ system in supramolecular chemistry to analyze and explain the complex chiral response both at the chiral and achiral plasmonic resonances. We also provide an elegant and simple analytical model, which can describe, predict, and comprehend the chiroptical spectra in detail. Our study will shed light on designing well-controlled chiral–achiral coupling platforms for reliable chiral sensing.