We plan to introduce rationally designed plasmonic nanostructures to locally convert the incident linearly polarized excitation into enhanced and properly shaped optical near field capable of enhancing CD of chiral molecules. The idea is based on the argument that plasmonic nanostructures function as optical nanoantennas, which are capable of concentrating light at subwavelength regime and sculpting the field properties to enhance light-matter interaction. In particular, plasmonic nanostructures have been demonstrated very useful in shaping optical near fields to enhance circular dichroism of chiral matters. With correctly designed plasmonic nanostructures, it is possible to perform CD analysis with EW-CRDS using linear polarized light.

The project is funded by DFG grant number HU 2626/3-1; AOBJ 657825.