Probing Chirality with Inelastic Electron-Light Scattering

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c01130
• Publication Date: 2020-05-08T16:17:01Z
• Authors: Tyler R. Harvey; Jan-Wilke Henke; Ofer Kfir; Hugo Lourenço-Mar...; Armin Feist; F. Javier García ...; Claus Ropers
• Keywords: Chirality

Circular dichroism spectroscopy is an essential technique for understanding molecular structure and magnetic materials, but spatial resolution limited by the wavelength of light, sensitivity sufficient single-molecule challenging. We demonstrate that electrons can efficiently measure interaction between circularly polarized light chiral materials with deeply sub-wavelength resolution. By scanning a nanometer-sized focused electron beam across optically-excited nanostructure measuring energy spectrum at each probe position, we produce high-spatial-resolution map near-field dichroism. This offers nanoscale view fundamental symmetry could be employed as "photon staining" to increase biomolecular material contrast in microscopy.