Title :
Sensitive detection of biomolecular chirality by nonlinear optical activity
Author :
Verbiest, Thierry ; Kauranen, Martti ; Persoons, André
Author_Institution :
Lab. of Chem. & Biol. Dynamics, Univ. of Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium
Abstract :
We have studied nonlinear optical activity in second-harmonic generation from Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers of a synthetic chiral polymers. All observed effects are explained by a model that includes the contributions of both electric and magnetic dipole transitions to the second-order nonlinearity of the chiral surface. In this paper, we use samples of bacteriorhodopsin as an example to show that such nonlinear optical activity can be used as a sensitive probe of chiral environment of biological material
Keywords :
Langmuir-Blodgett films; biophysics; biosensors; chirality; light polarisation; monolayers; optical films; optical harmonic generation; optical rotation; proteins; sensitivity; Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers; bacteriorhodopsin; biological material; biomolecular chirality; biosensors; chiral environment; chiral surface; electric dipole transitions; magnetic dipole transitions; nonlinear optical activity; second-harmonic generation; second-order nonlinearity; sensitive detection; synthetic chiral polymers; Atom optics; Biomedical optical imaging; Laser beams; Magnetic moments; Magnetization; Nonlinear optics; Optical polymers; Optical sensors; Optical surface waves; Polarization;
Conference_Titel :
Nonlinear Optics: Materials, Fundamentals, and Applications, 1994. NLO '94 IEEE
Conference_Location :
Waikoloa, HI
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-1473-5
DOI :
10.1109/NLO.1994.470887
