Abstract
Detecting the chirality of molecules is of great importance in optics, biomedicine, and materials science. In chiroptical spectroscopy, it’s crucial to achieve strong chiroptical signals with a minimal number of chiral molecules. The molecular chiroptical signals, however, are typically weak for chiral molecular sensing in conventional circular dichroism using photonic spin angular momentum, even in the presence of a large number of chiral molecules (micromoles to millimoles). Here, by involving chiral light-matter interaction with photonic orbital angular momentum, we demonstrate strong chiroptical responses that reflect the molecular chirality in a single chiral nanoassembly. We experimentally present the helical dichroism spectra of chiral nanoassemblies synthesized from L/D-cystines, consistent with electromagnetic simulations. The asymmetry factors in the fundamental wavelength and photoluminescence emission reach values of 0.53 and 1.18, respectively, exceeding those observed in the circular dichroism mechanism. To improve the dimensions of helical dichroism spectroscopy, we analyze helical dichroism in wavelength domain, polarization domain, and momentum space. Our findings not only expand the methods for trace chiral molecular sensing but also provide insights into chiral light-matter interactions.
Data availability
The main data supporting the results in this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information. Other source data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 62375253 and 62325507), National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFF0502700 and 2023YFF0613600). C.-W.Q. acknowledged the financial support by the Ministry of Education, Republic of Singapore (Grant Nos. A-8002152-00-00 and A-8002458-00-00), and the Competitive Research Program Award (NRF-CRP26-2021-0004 and NRF-CRP30-2023-0003) from the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore. C.W.Q. also acknowledged the support from the National University of Singapore Suzhou Research Institute via Grant No. R-2023-S-011. We acknowledge the Experimental Center of Engineering and Material Sciences at USTC for the fabrication and measurement of samples. This work was partly carried out at the USTC Center for Micro and Nanoscale Research and Fabrication.
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Y. Jin and J.N. proposed the idea and conceived the experiment. Y. Jin, X.W., and Z.X. performed the experiments. Y. Jin, J.N., and X.R. performed the data analysis. Y. Jin and J.N. performed the numerical simulations. Y. Jin, J.N., and C.W.Q. wrote the manuscript. X.C., K.L., Y. Jiang, and J.C. revised the manuscript. J.N., D.W., and C.W.Q. supervised the project.
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Jin, Y., Wang, X., Xia, Z. et al. Multidimensional helical dichroism from a chiral molecular nanoassembly. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68540-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68540-y
