The Terahertz Twist: Revolutionizing Crystal Chirality With Light

Researchers have discovered a method to induce chirality in non-chiral materials using terahertz light.

This groundbreaking technique, which involves manipulating crystal lattice structures on ultrafast timescales, could revolutionize applications in ultrafast memory devices and optoelectronics, highlighting a significant advancement in the dynamic control of material properties.

Breakthrough in Chirality Induction

Scientists from the University of Oxford and the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) have discovered that terahertz light can induce chirality in a crystal that is naturally non-chiral. This breakthrough allows the crystal to take on either a left- or right-handed form on demand. Their findings, published on January 23 in Science, open new possibilities for studying complex materials and their dynamic behaviors.

Chirality is a key property of matter that plays a crucial role in biological, chemical, and physical processes. It describes objects that cannot be perfectly aligned with their mirror images, similar to how our left and right hands are different. In chiral crystals, the way atoms are arranged gives the material a distinct ‘handedness,’ which can significantly impact properties such as how the crystal interacts with light and electricity.

New Possibilities in Material Science

Chiral solids, for example, offer exciting opportunities for catalysis, sensing, and optical devices by enabling unique interactions with chiral molecules and polarised light. These properties are established when the material is grown, that is, the left- and right-handed enantiomers cannot be converted into one another without melting and recrystallization.

Until now, inducing chirality using light had never been demonstrated, but it follows directly from a set of theoretical predictions made by co-author Professor Paolo G Radaelli, Department of Physics, Oxford, in 2018. A collaboration between Oxford (Professor Radaelli) and the Max Planck Society (Professor Cavalleri) led to a series of state-of-the-art experiments to test this theory.

Ultrafast Chirality Induction Achieved

In the new study, the Oxford-Hamburg team proved the prediction and succeeded in inducing chirality in a non-chiral material (boron phosphate, BPO4) on ultrafast timescales, using terahertz light.

Lead researcher Professor Andrea Cavalleri, Oxford and MPSD, said: “This discovery opens up new possibilities for the dynamical control of matter at the atomic level. We are excited to see the potential applications of this technology and how it can be used to create unique functionalities. The ability to induce chirality in non-chiral materials could lead to new applications in ultrafast memory devices or even more sophisticated optoelectronic platforms.”

Advancements and Potential Risks

Zhiyang Zeng is a graduate student on the Oxford-Max Planck graduate training program in quantum materials, jointly supervised by Professors Radaelli and Cavalleri, and is the lead author on the paper: “We exploit a mechanism termed nonlinear phononics. By exciting a specific terahertz frequency vibrational mode, which displaces the crystal lattice along the coordinates of other modes in the material, we created a chiral state that survives for several picoseconds.”

Co-author Dr. Michael Först, MPSD, continued: “Notably, by rotating the polarization of the terahertz light by 90 degrees, we could selectively induce either a left- or right-handed chiral structure.”

Professor Radaelli commented: “This approach has huge potential. We have already demonstrated the magnetic analog of this effect, using light to generate magnetism in a non-magnetic material. We are currently attempting to “switch on” other properties, such as ferroelectricity, on ultra-fast timescales.”

Although concerns have been raised that the ability to generate chiral molecules presents potential risks to life, in this case no permanently chiral molecule is created. Instead, crystals are induced to be right- or left-handed for an extremely short time – typically a trillionth of a second.

Website: International Conference on High Energy Physics and Computational Science.

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