Abstract

Chirality is equivalent to lack of mirror planes in a material system. For example, chiral molecules occur in two different enantiomers that are mirror images of each other. In linear optics, chiral molecules are known for their optical activity, i.e., their different interaction with left- and right-hand circularly-polarized light. Recently, it has been shown that the efficiency of second-harmonic generation from chiral and isotropic surfaces is different for the two circularly-polarized fundamental beams.^1,2 Furthermore, it has been shown that second-harmonic generation using appropriately chosen linear input polarizations can also be used as a probe of surface chirality.³

© 1996 Optical Society of America