Optical chirality of bacteriorhodopsin films via second harmonic Maker’s fringes measurements

Abstract

We experimentally investigated second harmonic generation from an oriented multilayer film of bacteriorhodopsin protein, deposited onto a charged surface. The generated signal is obtained as a function of incidence angle, at different polarization state of both fundamental and generated beams. We show that the measurements, together with the analytical curves, allow to retrieve the nonvanishing elements of the nonlinear optical tensor, including the ones introduced by optical chirality.