Abstract

Chiral molecules respond in different ways to left- and right-hand circularly-polarized light. The resulting linear phenomena of optical rotation and circular dichroism are explained by contributions of magnetic-dipole transitions to the linear optical properties of chiral media. Similar circular-difference (CD) effects have been predicted to occur also in nonlinear optical processes and have recently been observed in surface second-harmonic (SH) generation.¹ We have investigated SH generation from chiral surfaces both experimentally and theoretically and explain the CD effects by magnetic contributions to the second-order nonlinearity.

© 1994 Optical Society of America