The theory reaches good agreement with experimental CD spectra and allows for establishing the (supra)molecular design rules for maximizing or minimizing this chiroptical effect. Here, we present such a theory based on a combination of Mueller calculus and a Lorentz oscillator model. However, a theory connecting the underlying optical selection rules to the microscopic electronic structure of the constituent molecules remains to be formulated. Recent experiments on organic thin films have demonstrated such chiroptical behavior, which was attributed to “apparent CD” resulting from an interference between the sample’s linear birefringence and linear dichroism. However, effective transduction implementations likely require interactions that are antisymmetric with respect to the direction of light propagation through the sample, yielding an inversion of the chiroptical response upon sample flipping, which is uncommon for CD. Its underlying chiral light–matter interactions effectively couple between photonic spin states and select quantum-mechanical degrees of freedom in a sample, implying an intricate connection with photon-to-matter quantum transduction. Circular dichroism (CD) finds widespread application as an optical probe for the structure of molecules and supramolecular assemblies.

Origin thin setup