Circular Dichroism Reflectance Anisotropy of Chiral Atomically Thin Films

Abstract

Recently, a technical modification of a Reflectance Anisotropy Spectroscopy (RAS) spectrometer has been proposed to investigate the circular dichroism (CD) of samples instead of the normally studied linear dichroism. CD-RAS measures the anisotropy of the optical properties of a sample under right-handed and left-handed circularly polarized light. Here, we present the application of CD-RAS to measure the circular dichroism of a twisted bilayer of graphene, purposely prepared as a possible substrate for the adsorption of thin molecular layers, in air, in liquid or in a vacuum. This result demonstrates the performance of the apparatus and shows interesting perspectives for the investigation of chiral organic assemblies deposited in solid film.

Keywords

• reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy
• circular dichroism
• chiral layers
• twisted graphene bilayers