Department of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Faculty of Science, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China.
J Chem Phys. 2023 Sep 21;159(11). doi: 10.1063/5.0156513.
The ability to accurately monitor chiral biological molecules is of great significance for their potential applications in disease diagnosis and virus detection. As the existing chiral detection technologies are mainly relying on an optical method by using left/right circularly polarized light, the universality is low and the operation is complicated. Moreover, large quantity of chiral molecules is required, causing low detection efficiency. Here, a self-assembled monolayer of polypeptides has been fabricated to realize trace detection of chirality based on spin selectivity of photon-electron interaction. We have utilized Kerr technique to detect the rotation angle by the molecular monolayer, which indicates the chirality of polypeptides. The chiral structure of a biological molecule could result in spin-selectivity of electrons and thus influence the interaction between electron spin and light polarization. A Kerr rotation angle of ∼3° has been obviously observed, equivalent to the magneto-optic Kerr effect without magnetic material or magnetic field. Furthermore, we have provided a novel solution to achieve chirality discrimination and amplification simultaneously through an optical fiber. The proposed design is applicable for chiral detection via increasing their differential output signal, which clearly demonstrates a useful strategy toward chirality characterization of biological molecules.
准确监测手性生物分子的能力对于它们在疾病诊断和病毒检测中的潜在应用具有重要意义。由于现有的手性检测技术主要依赖于使用左右圆偏振光的光学方法，因此通用性低，操作复杂。此外，需要大量的手性分子，导致检测效率低下。在这里，我们已经制备了一个多肽自组装单分子层，以实现基于光电子相互作用的自旋选择性的痕量手性检测。我们利用克尔技术通过分子单层检测旋转角度，从而指示多肽的手性。生物分子的手性结构会导致电子的自旋选择性，从而影响电子自旋与光偏振之间的相互作用。我们明显观察到约 3°的克尔旋转角，相当于没有磁性材料或磁场的磁光克尔效应。此外，我们通过光纤提供了一种同时实现手性分辨和放大的新方案。通过增加其差分输出信号，该设计适用于手性检测，这清楚地表明了一种用于生物分子手性表征的有用策略。
