Laura Rego from the Chemistry Department of the Autonomous University of Madrid, will give the seminar titled “Tailoring Light’s Polarization for Chiral Discrimination” on November 24 at 1:00 p.m.
The seminar will take place in room VII of the Trilingual Building at the University of Salamanca
Abstract: Chiral molecules are very relevant in many chemical and biological processes. For that reason, distinguishing between the two versions of a chiral molecule (enantiomers) is vital, but it is also challenging. In this talk, we will see several schemes to study chirality using ultrashort laser pulses with structured polarization. Our methods take advantage of light’s tailored polarization to create enantiosensitive interferences in the non-linear optical emission from the chiral molecules. First, we will show how to turn an ultrashort elliptical pulse into an efficient chiro-optical tool: by tilting its polarization plane towards its propagation direction. Second, we will introduce a different approach for efficient chiral recognition which relies on the interference between two low-order nonlinear processes: sum-frequency generation and third-harmonic generation. Finally, we will see how we can imprint chirality in atoms. In these theoretical proposals, the molecular handedness can be retrieved by all-optical measurements and in ultrafast time scales.
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