Large enhancement of chiral asymmetry in light reflection near critical angle

Optical properties of isotropic chiral media

“…Enhancement of chirality effects in the vicinity of the critical angles has been noted in [15,16,18]. Here we give the reflection amplitudes, first for a bulk chiral medium, and then for a chiral layer.…”

“…We have chosen the zx plane as the plane of incidence, with s = (0, 1, 0) = s , p = (cos θ 1 , 0, − sin θ 1 ) and p = (− cos θ 1 , 0, − sin θ 1 ). From equations (15) and 17 from which we extract the coefficients of positive and negative helicity, namely of (p ± is )/ √ 2, to find…”

“…Measurements on chiral media of DLR [12] and DCR [15][16][17][18] have been made by Silverman and collaborators. The reflection amplitudes r pp , r ss , r ps and r sp can be used to calculate the reflection ellipsometric signal, which in the common experimental configurations is one of the ratios ρ P or ρ A , where [19] ρ P = r pp + r sp tan P r ps + r ss tan P ρ A = r pp + r ps tan A r sp + r ss tan A…”

“…and θ ± are the angles of refraction for the two plane waves of opposite helicity. For incident s (TE) plane-polarized waves, the incoming and reflected waves have electric fields given by (14) and (15). Thus the electric field in medium 1 is E 1 = (r sp cos θ 1 e −iq 1 z , e iq 1 z + r ss e −iq 1 z , r sp sin θ 1 e −iq 1 z ) e iKx .…”

“…The energy conservation conditions to be satisfied by the reflection and transmission amplitudes follow from arguments along the lines given in section 1.3, and were first written down by Silverman and Badoz [15]. The helicity amplitudes satisfy…”