Dynamic tuning of enhanced intrinsic circular dichroism in plasmonic stereo-metamolecule array with surface lattice resonance

Abstract

Abstract Enhancing the circular dichroism signals of chiral plasmonic nanostructures is vital for realizing miniaturized functional chiroptical devices, such as ultrathin wave plates and high-performance chiral biosensors. Rationally assembling individual plasmonic metamolecules into coupled nanoclusters or periodic arrays provides an extra degree of freedom to effectively manipulate and leverage the intrinsic circular dichroism of the constituent structures. Here, we show that sophisticated manipulation over the geometric parameters of a plasmonic stereo-metamolecule array enables selective excitation of its surface lattice resonance mode either by left- or right-handed circularly polarized incidence through diffraction coupling, which can significantly amplify the differential absorption and hence the intrinsic circular dichroism. In particular, since the diffraction coupling requires no index-matching condition and its handedness can be switched by manipulating the refractive index of either the superstrate or the substrate, it is therefore possible to achieve dynamic tuning and active control of the intrinsic circular dichroism response without the need of modifying structure parameters. Our proposed system provides a versatile platform for ultrasensitive chiral plasmonics biosensing and light field manipulation.