Chemical Physics Letters, Vol.352, No.5-6, 463-468, 2002
The chiral specificity of sum-frequency generation in solutions
Sum-frequency generation in isotropic media is in the electric-dipole approximation the only symmetry allowed for chiral systems. We demonstrate that the sum-frequency intensity from an optically active liquid depends quadratically on the difference in concentration of the two enantiomers. The dominant contribution to the signal is found to be due to the chirality specific electric-dipolar three-wave mixing nonlinearity. Selecting the polarization of all fields allows the chiral electric-dipolar contributions to the bulk sum-frequency signal to be discerned from any achiral magnetic-dipolar and electric-quadrupolar contributions. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.