Ultrafast Optical Rotation for Extremely Sensitive Enantio-Discrimination

Chiral molecules exist in pairs of left- and right-handed enantiomers, two non-superimposable "mirror twins". They have identical properties, unless interacting with another chiral object. Light has long served as the preferred tool for chiral recognition. However, circularly polarized light, the standard chiro-optical tool, is not efficient: the weakness of non-electric-dipole effects makes its interaction with of opposite enantiomers virtually identical. We have recently introduced synthetic chiral light [1] , which enables huge enantio-sensitivity within the electric-dipole approximation, surpassing the accepted standards by several orders of magnitude.