Chiroptical response of a single plasmonic nanohelix

Abstract

We investigate the chiroptical response of a single plasmonic nanohelix interacting with a weakly focused circularly polarized Gaussian beam. The optical scattering at the fundamental resonance is characterized experimentally and numerically. The angularly resolved scattering of the excited nanohelix is verified experimentally and it validates the numerical results. We employ a multipole decomposition analysis to study the fundamental and first higher-order resonance of the nanohelix, explaining their chiral properties in terms of the formation of chiral dipoles.