Chiral plasmonic nanostructures will be of increasing importance for future applications in
the field of nano optics and metamaterials. Their sensitivity to incident circularly polarized
light in combination with the ability of extreme electromagnetic field localization renders
them ideal candidates for chiral sensing and for all-optical information processing. Here, the
resonant modes of single plasmonic helices are investigated. We find that a single
plasmonic helix can be efficiently excited with circularly polarized light of both equal and …

The strength of the chiroptical response can be quantified in different ways. Optical rotation
and ellipticity are typically defined by the polarization ellipse of the transmitted light obtained
upon incidence of linearly polarized light [1]. While optical rotation refers to the rotation of the
polarization plane, ellipticity is given by the ratio of the major axes of the resulting
polarization ellipse. Since both quantities are Kramers-Kronig related, the opto-chiral
interaction can be quantified using either of them. The ellipticity can be determined by the …