Optical Activity of Anisotropic Achiral Surfaces

Abstract

Anisotropic achiral surfaces respond differently to left- and right-hand circularly polarized light. This occurs when the orientation of the surface with respect to an otherwise achiral experimental setup makes the total geometry chiral. Such optical activity is demonstrated in second-harmonic generation from an anisotropic thin molecular film. The circular-difference response reverses sign as the handedness of the geometry is reversed and vanishes when the setup possesses a mirror plane. The results are explained within the electric-dipole-allowed second-order surface nonlinearity.