Seeds of 2D chirality grow 3D…

In a new publication in ACS Photonics, we show that optical spin orientations can be locked to intracavity propagation directions when a seed of planar (2D) chirality is present inside the cavity. This seed is given by inserting between the two metallic mirrors of a Fabry–Perot cavity a layer of polystyrene made 2D chiral under torsional shear stress. This planar chirality gives rise to an extrinsic source of three-dimensional chirality under oblique illumination that endows the cavities with enantiomorphic signatures measured experimentally and simulated with excellent agreement. The simplicity of this scheme is particularly promising in the context of chiral cavity QED and polaritonic asymmetric chemistry, driven by chiral polaritonic states.