The functionality of biomolecules is largely relevant to their structural chirality, especially the handedness. Discriminating between enantiomers, namely mirror-imaged chiral molecule pairs, and physically separating them are thus vitally important in life sciences. However, completing these tasks by an optical means is very challenging, because the molecular chirality is intrinsically weak. Here we numerically study a design of dielectric metasurfaces for enhancing the near-ultraviolet circular dichroism of chiral molecules and for enantioselective separation of chiral nanoparticles by optical forces. The proposed device can also function as a helicity-preserving meta-mirror. Our findings may pave the way toward practical chiroptical devices.
|