CAREER: OP: Ultraviolet Superchiral Light-Matter Interactions: Plasmonic Devices for Enhanced Structural Biology Characterization

标题：职业：超手性光-物质相互作用：增强结构生物学特征的等离子体装置摘要非技术：人类的手可能是手性物体的最好例子。手性物体不能被覆盖在它们的镜像上，并且是生命本身的基础。例如，氨基酸是左撇子，糖是右撇子。光也可以是手性的，具有左手或右手的扭曲。扭曲光可以与手性物质相互作用或“握手”，为表征生物分子结构提供了一种快速、非侵入性的方法。该项目的第一个目标是促进对手性光物质相互作用的理解，使设备能够快速识别帕金森氏症和阿尔茨海默氏症，并推进治疗方法的搜索。这个项目的第二个目标是通过与偏振光有关的视频和迷你课程，让三年级和高中生参与科学和工程研究。除了这些努力之外，这个项目将通过指导直接造福于研究生和本科生研究人员；更广泛地说，对偏振光-物质相互作用感兴趣的K-12学生。技术：手性物体，即不能在其镜像上重叠的物体，表现出表现为圆双折射和圆二向色性的光学活动，即左右圆偏振光(CPL)的折射率和吸收的差异。结构生物学家长期以来一直在研究这些手性光与物质的相互作用，以了解蛋白质中结构与功能的关系。不幸的是，传统的光学表征方法提供的低分辨率结构信息主要是由于生物分子与光的波长之间的大尺寸失配。纳米结构等离子体器件可以产生超手征近场，在亚衍射限制体积内提供高度扭曲的光，即超过CPL的100倍。通过这个项目，PI将研究制造的等离子体器件和生物分子之间的超手性光物质相互作用。这项研究将探索等离子体共振和生物分子之间的能量和空间重叠，以努力最大限度地增强生物分子的远场手性光谱。这些研究有望扩大我们对超手性光-物质相互作用的理解，并导致一类新的等离子体装置，包括用于退行性疾病早期检测和治疗药物设计的装置。

Title: CAREER: Superchiral Light-Matter Interactions: Plasmonic Devices for Enhanced Structural Biology CharacterizationAbstractNon-Technical: The human hand is perhaps the best example of a chiral object. Chiral objects cannot be overlaid on their mirror image and are fundamental to life itself. For example, amino acids are left handed and sugars are right handed. Light can also be chiral having either a left- or right-handed twist. Twisted light can interact or "shake hands" with chiral matter offering a rapid, non-invasive method for characterizing the structure of biomolecules. The first goal of this project is to advance the understanding of chiral light-matter interactions, enabling devices that can rapidly identify Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases and advance the search for cures. The second goal of this project is to engage 3rd grade and high school students in science and engineering research through videos and mini-courses related to polarized light. Beyond these efforts, this project will directly benefit graduate and undergraduate researchers through mentoring; and more broadly, K-12 students with interests in polarized light-matter interactions.Technical: Chiral objects, i.e. not superimposable on their mirror image, exhibit optical activity which manifest in circular birefringence and circular dichroism i.e., the difference in the refractive indices and absorption for left and right circularly polarized light (CPL), respectively. Structural biologist have long pursued these chiral light-matter interactions to understand the structure-function relationship in proteins. Unfortunately, traditional optical characterization methods provide low-resolution structural information primarily due to the large size mismatch between biomolecules and the wavelength of light. Nanostructured plasmonic devices can generate superchiral near-fields, which provide highly twisted light i.e., over 100 times that of CPL, confined in sub-diffraction limited volumes. Through this program, the PI will investigate superchiral light-matter interactions between fabricated plasmonic devices and biomolecules. This research will explore the energy and spatial overlap between plasmonic resonances and biomolecules in an effort to maximize the enhancement of the far-field chiroptical spectra of the biomolecule. These studies are expected to expand our understanding of superchiral light-matter interactions and lead to a new class of plasmonic devices including those used in early detection of degenerative diseases and drug design for their treatments.