Abstract

Chirality is equivalent to the lack of mirror planes in a material system. For example, chiral molecules do not possess mirror planes and occur in two different enatiomers that are mirror images of each other. In linear optics, chiral molecules give rise to optical activity effects, i.e., the interaction with left- and righthand circularly polarized light is different. Such effects also exist in nonlinear optics. For example, it has been shown that secondharmonic generation from chiral, isotropic surfaces is sensitive to the handedness of incoming circularly polarized light.^1,2

© 1997 Optical Society of America