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Abstract Detection and identification of chiral molecules are important for pharmaceutical industry, clinical analysis, and food analysis. Here, chiral molecular sensing based on spatially selective coupling between achiral metasurface and chiral molecules is demonstrated. The designed achiral metasurface exhibits strong optical chirality and electric field with dissymmetric distribution, and chiral molecules are selectively placed over the area with large optical chirality to form the coupled metasurface-molecule system with circular dichroism (CD) response for chiral molecular sensing. The CD spectra of the metasurface coupled with pure D-alanine enantiomer, L-alanine enantiomer and their mixtures are examined. The linear relationship between the peak CD value and the enantiomeric excess is demonstrated for the detection and identification of pure enantiomers and their mixtures. Furthermore, the CD response of the coupled system shows potential for the sensing of molar concentration of chiral molecules. Moreover, the effect of spatial location of molecules on the CD response is analyzed to show potential for position sensing of chiral molecules. These results of chiral molecular sensing with achiral metasurface offer new opportunities for advancing biomolecular sensing applications.
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X-ray circular dichroism signals: a unique probe of local molecular chirality
Core-resonant circular dichroism (CD) signals are induced by molecular chirality and vanish for achiral molecules and racemic mixtures. The highly localized nature of core excitations makes them ideal probes of local chirality within molecules. Simulations of the circular dichroism spectra of several molecular families illustrate how these signals vary with the electronic coupling to substitution groups, the distance between the X-ray chromophore and the chiral center, geometry, and chemical structure. Clear insight into the molecular structure is obtained through analysis of the X-ray CD spectra.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1361516
- PAR ID:
- 10057292
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Chemical Science
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2041-6520
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 5969 to 5978
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1039/C7SC01347G
