Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Terahertz Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy of Molecular Assemblies and Nanostructures

Journal Article · · Journal of the American Chemical Society
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.2c04817· OSTI ID:1962479
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2]
  1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  2. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

Chemical, physical, biological and materials engineering disciplines use a variety of chiroptical spectroscopies to probe geometrical and optical asymmetry in molecules and particles. Electronic (ECD) and vibrational (VCD) circular dichroism are the most common of these techniques and collectively enable the studies of electronic and vibronic transitions with energies between 0.1 and 5.0 eV. The vibrational states with characteristic energies in the range of 0.001–0.01 eV carry valuable information about concerted intermolecular motions in molecules and crystals involving multiple atoms. These vibronic transitions located in the terahertz (THz) part of the spectrum become increasingly more important for the chemistry, physics, and biology of complex molecules and materials However, the methodology and hardware of THz circular dichroism (TCD) are much less developed than the chiroptical spectroscopies for ultraviolet, visible, near- and mid infrared photons. In this report we provide theoretical foundations, practical implementations, comparative assessments, and exemplary applications of TCD spectroscopy. We show that the sign, intensity, and position of TCD peaks are highly sensitive to the three-dimensional structure and long-range organization of molecular crystals, which offer unique capabilities to study (bio) molecules, their crystals, and nanoscale assemblies and apply the novel data processing methodologies. TCD also offers a convenient toolbox to identify new physical phenomena, such as chiral phonons and their propagation in nanostructured matter. We also discuss the major challenges, emerging opportunities and promising research directions, including broad investigation of chiral phonons observed in chiral (nano) crystals and emerging machine learning methodologies for TCD in biological and nanoscale structures. Ubiquity of low-frequency vibrations with rotational components in biomolecular structures, combined with sharpness of peaks in TCD spectra, enables a variety of technological translations.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; Vannevar Bush DoD Fellowship; US Department of Navy Office of Naval Research (ONR); US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1962479
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-840148; 1060993
Journal Information:
Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal Name: Journal of the American Chemical Society Journal Issue: 50 Vol. 144; ISSN 0002-7863
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (154)

Gigantic optical non-linearities from nanoparticle-enhanced molecular probes with potential for selectively imaging the structure and physiology of nanometric regions in cellular systems journal September 1996
Origami-Based Reconfigurable Metamaterials for Tunable Chirality journal May 2017
Inhibition of Amyloid Peptide Fibrillation by Inorganic Nanoparticles: Functional Similarities with Proteins journal April 2011
Growth Actuated Bending and Twisting of Single Crystals journal January 2014
Measuring the Elasticity of Poly- l -Proline Helices with Terahertz Spectroscopy journal April 2016
Application of THz Vibrational Spectroscopy to Molecular Characterization and the Theoretical Fundamentals: An Illustration Using Saccharide Molecules journal January 2017
Nonlinear optical spectroscopy of chiral molecules journal January 2005
Theoretical Analysis of the Terahertz Spectrum of the High Explosive PETN journal November 2006
Applications of Terahertz Spectroscopy in Biosystems journal December 2007
Geometric Frustration in Molecular Crystals journal December 2020
Optical Activity in Third‐Harmonic Rayleigh Scattering: A New Route for Measuring Chirality journal September 2021
Near‐Field Nanoscopic Terahertz Imaging of Single Proteins journal December 2020
Weak Coupling, Strong Coupling, Critical Coupling and Fano Resonances: A Unifying Vision book January 2018
Terahertz Quality Control of Polymeric Products journal February 2007
Polarization-sensitive THz-TDS and its Application to Anisotropy Sensing journal August 2013
Validation of protein structural models using THz spectroscopy: a promising approach to solve three-dimensional structures journal January 2014
Terahertz spectroscopy and machine learning algorithm for non-destructive evaluation of protein conformation journal April 2020
THz near-field imaging journal May 1998
Synthesis of optically active compounds: A large scale perspective journal January 1991
Advances of Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD) in bioanalytical chemistry. A review journal October 2017
Insulin amyloid fibrillation studied by terahertz spectroscopy and other biophysical methods journal January 2010
Electronic Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy of Proteins journal November 2019
Hyper-Rayleigh scattering of neutral and charged helicenes journal September 2005
Terahertz spectroscopy of solid serine and cysteine journal January 2006
Terahertz technology and its applications journal June 2013
Chiral supramolecular gold-cysteine nanoparticles: Chiroptical and nonlinear optical properties journal October 2016
Biomedical Applications of Terahertz Spectroscopy and Imaging journal October 2016
Complementarity of electronic and vibrational circular dichroism based on stereochemical studies of vic-diols journal November 2015
Self-Assembly of Chiral Nanoparticles into Semiconductor Helices with Tunable near-Infrared Optical Activity journal December 2019
Nanomaterials for In Vivo Imaging journal January 2017
Efficient Absorption of CO2 by Introduction of Intramolecular Hydrogen Bonding in Chiral Amino Acid Ionic Liquids journal April 2018
Probing Intermolecular Interactions in Phospholipid Bilayers by Far-Infrared Spectroscopy journal February 2017
Heterodyne-Detected Achiral and Chiral Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation of Proteins at Air/Water Interface journal April 2015
Circularly Polarized Luminescence in Chiral Molecules and Supramolecular Assemblies journal August 2015
Broad-Bandwidth Chiral Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy for Probing the Kinetics of Proteins at Interfaces journal July 2015
Single Nanoparticle Chiroptics in a Liquid: Optical Activity in Hyper-Rayleigh Scattering from Au Helicoids journal June 2020
Propagating Chiral Phonons in Three-Dimensional Materials journal March 2021
“Atomic Force Masking” Induced Formation of Effective Hot Spots along Grain Boundaries of Metal Thin Films journal November 2016
Chiral Metal–Organic Framework as a Platform for Cooperative Catalysis in Asymmetric Cyanosilylation of Aldehydes journal October 2016
Strategies to Achieve High Circularly Polarized Luminescence from Colloidal Organic–Inorganic Hybrid Perovskite Nanocrystals journal July 2020
Metal–Organic Framework-Derived Nanoporous Metal Oxides toward Supercapacitor Applications: Progress and Prospects journal May 2017
Identifying Fibrillization State of Aβ Protein via Near-Field THz Conductance Measurement journal March 2020
Near-Field Stationary Sample Terahertz Spectroscopic Polarimetry for Biomolecular Structural Dynamics Determination journal February 2021
Three-Dimensional Layer-by-Layer Anode Structure Based on Co3O4Nanoplates Strongly Tied by Capillary-like Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes for Use in High-Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries journal February 2015
Circular dichroism spectroscopy at interfaces: a surface second harmonic generation study journal February 1993
Protein Sequence- and pH-Dependent Hydration Probed by Terahertz Spectroscopy journal February 2008
Amino Acid Based Metal−Organic Nanofibers journal December 2009
A Machine Learning Protocol for Predicting Protein Infrared Spectra journal October 2020
Hyper-Rayleigh Scattering as a New Chiroptical Method: Uncovering the Nonlinear Optical Activity of Aromatic Oligoamide Foldamers journal December 2019
Accurate Machine Learning Prediction of Protein Circular Dichroism Spectra with Embedded Density Descriptors journal November 2021
Intermolecular Vibrations in Hydrophobic Amino Acid Crystals: Experiments and Calculations
  • Williams, Michael R. C.; Aschaffenburg, Daniel J.; Ofori-Okai, Benjamin K.
  • The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol. 117, Issue 36 https://doi.org/10.1021/jp406730a
journal August 2013
Terahertz Chiroptical Spectroscopy of an α-Helical Polypeptide: A Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study journal October 2014
Plasmonic Enhancement of Raman Optical Activity in Molecules near Metal Nanoshells: Theoretical Comparison of Circular Polarization Methods journal January 2010
Extreme Sensitivity of Circular Dichroism to Long-Range Excitonic Couplings in Helical Supramolecular Assemblies journal January 2010
Electrical Contact Tunable Direct Printing Route for a ZnO Nanowire Schottky Diode journal August 2010
Maximal Raman Optical Activity in Hybrid Single Molecule-Plasmonic Nanostructures with Multiple Dipolar Resonances journal February 2013
Programmable Direct-Printing Nanowire Electronic Components journal January 2010
Remotely excited Raman optical activity using chiral plasmon propagation in Ag nanowires journal November 2013
Unconventional superconductivity in magic-angle graphene superlattices journal March 2018
Observation of coherent delocalized phonon-like modes in DNA under physiological conditions journal June 2016
Enantiomeric switching of chiral metamaterial for terahertz polarization modulation employing vertically deformable MEMS spirals journal October 2015
Spatial sampling of terahertz fields with sub-wavelength accuracy via probe-beam encoding journal June 2019
Circularly polarized luminescence from organic micro-/nano-structures journal April 2021
Towards exact molecular dynamics simulations with machine-learned force fields journal September 2018
Unwinding a spiral of cellulose nanocrystals for stimuli-responsive stretchable optics journal January 2019
Strong coupling of collective intermolecular vibrations in organic materials at terahertz frequencies journal July 2019
Functional THz emitters based on Pancharatnam-Berry phase nonlinear metasurfaces journal January 2021
Evidence for one-dimensional chiral edge states in a magnetic Weyl semimetal Co3Sn2S2 journal July 2021
Terahertz circular dichroism spectroscopy of biomaterials enabled by kirigami polarization modulators journal July 2019
Mechano-tunable chiral metasurfaces via colloidal assembly journal April 2021
Real-space observation of vibrational strong coupling between propagating phonon polaritons and organic molecules journal November 2020
Third-harmonic Mie scattering from semiconductor nanohelices journal January 2022
Chiral phonons in microcrystals and nanofibrils of biomolecules journal March 2022
Entanglement of single-photons and chiral phonons in atomically thin WSe2 journal December 2018
Chiral-perovskite optoelectronics journal March 2020
Amino-acid- and peptide-directed synthesis of chiral plasmonic gold nanoparticles journal April 2018
Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold journal July 2021
Highly accurate protein structure prediction for the human proteome journal July 2021
Enantiomer-dependent immunological response to chiral nanoparticles journal January 2022
Chemometric analysis in Raman spectroscopy from experimental design to machine learning–based modeling journal November 2021
Polarized super-resolution structural imaging inside amyloid fibrils using Thioflavine T journal October 2017
Understanding the Thalidomide Chirality in Biological Processes by the Self-disproportionation of Enantiomers journal November 2018
Dissolution of a fibrous peptide by terahertz free electron laser journal July 2019
Computed terahertz near-field mapping of molecular resonances of lactose stereo-isomer impurities with sub-attomole sensitivity journal November 2019
Chiral spintronics journal April 2021
Drawing Circuits with Carbon Nanotubes: Scratch-Induced Graphoepitaxial Growth of Carbon Nanotubes on Amorphous Silicon Oxide Substrates journal June 2014
Brain tumor imaging of rat fresh tissue using terahertz spectroscopy journal July 2016
Record-high hyperpolarizabilities in conjugated polymers journal January 2014
Chemically exfoliated transition metal dichalcogenide nanosheet-based wearable thermoelectric generators journal January 2016
Machine learning molecular dynamics for the simulation of infrared spectra journal January 2017
Biopolymeric photonic structures: design, fabrication, and emerging applications journal January 2020
Applications of OR/ECD/VCD to the structure elucidation of natural products journal January 2019
Normal vibrations of ternary DOPC/DPPC/cholesterol lipid bilayers by low-frequency Raman spectroscopy journal January 2019
Exploring machine learning methods for absolute configuration determination with vibrational circular dichroism journal January 2021
Pharmacologically active compounds in the environment and their chirality journal January 2010
Terahertz spectroscopy of enantiopure and racemic polycrystalline valine journal January 2011
Large polarization change in two-dimensional metallic photonic crystals in subterahertz region journal April 2003
Development of stress-induced curved actuators for a tunable THz filter based on double split-ring resonators journal March 2013
In vivo terahertz spectroscopy of pigmentary skin nevi: Pilot study of non-invasive early diagnosis of dysplasia journal February 2015
Terahertz spectroscopic polarimetry of generalized anisotropic media composed of Archimedean spiral arrays: Experiments and simulations journal May 2016
Tutorial: An introduction to terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) journal December 2018
Potential clinical applications of terahertz radiation journal May 2019
Perspective on integrating machine learning into computational chemistry and materials science journal June 2021
A structural model for Alzheimer's  -amyloid fibrils based on experimental constraints from solid state NMR journal December 2002
Senile amyloidoses – diseases of increasing importance journal January 2003
THz time domain spectroscopy of biomolecular conformational modes journal October 2002
Terahertz imaging applied to cancer diagnosis journal July 2010
Strong coupling between surface plasmon polaritons and emitters: a review journal December 2014
A review of the electrical properties of semiconductor nanowires: insights gained from terahertz conductivity spectroscopy journal September 2016
A review of terahertz detectors journal August 2019
Deep learning for circular dichroism of nanohole arrays journal June 2022
Terahertz Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy: A Potential Approach to the In Situ Detection of Life's Metabolic and Genetic Machinery journal September 2003
Chiral Toxicology: It's the Same Thing…Only Different journal May 2009
Far-infrared spectroscopy on oriented films of dry and hydrated DNA journal July 1986
Chiral Phonons at High-Symmetry Points in Monolayer Hexagonal Lattices journal September 2015
Pseudospins and Topological Effects of Phonons in a Kekulé Lattice journal December 2017
First Observation of Optical Activity in Hyper-Rayleigh Scattering journal February 2019
Machine Learning and Application in Terahertz Technology: A Review on Achievements and Future Challenges journal January 2022
THz Characterization of DNA Four-Way Junction and Its Components journal September 2010
Optimization of Terahertz Metamaterials for Near-Field Sensing of Chiral Substances journal November 2017
Dimensionality Reduction for Identification of Hepatic Tumor Samples Based on Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy journal May 2018
A kinetic study of β-lactoglobulin amyloid fibril formation promoted by urea journal April 2009
Classification of terahertz-pulsed imaging data from excised breast tissue journal February 2012
Terahertz spectroscopy of oligonucleotides in aqueous solutions journal September 2015
Terahertz emission from 2D nanomaterials conference September 2018
Terahertz time-domain polarimetry for generalized anistropic and chiral materials conference March 2019
Terahertz-pulsed imaging of cancers conference June 2003
Tunable chiral metal organic frameworks toward visible light–driven asymmetric catalysis journal August 2017
Direct observation of topological edge states in silicon photonic crystals: Spin, dispersion, and chiral routing journal March 2020
In situ manipulation of van der Waals heterostructures for twistronics journal December 2020
Identification of a Primary Target of Thalidomide Teratogenicity journal March 2010
Separation of Hexane Isomers in a Metal-Organic Framework with Triangular Channels journal May 2013
Chiromagnetic nanoparticles and gels journal January 2018
Observation of chiral phonons journal February 2018
Links Between the Quantum hall Effect, Chiral Boson Theories and String Theory journal October 2004
Viscoelasticity of amyloid plaques in transgenic mouse brain studied by Brillouin microspectroscopy and correlative Raman analysis journal November 2017
Excipient Stability in Oral Solid Dosage Forms: A Review journal September 2017
Terahertz image super-resolution based on a deep convolutional neural network journal April 2019
Automatic recognition of breast invasive ductal carcinoma based on terahertz spectroscopy with wavelet packet transform and machine learning journal January 2020
Terahertz wave polarization rotation with double layered metal grating of complimentary chiral patterns journal January 2007
Nanoparticle-enabled terahertz imaging for cancer diagnosis journal January 2009
Highly tunable optical activity in planar achiral terahertz metamaterials journal January 2010
Composite multiscale entropy analysis of reflective terahertz signals for biological tissues journal September 2017
Convolutional neural network model based on terahertz imaging for integrated circuit defect detections journal February 2020
Achromatic prism-type wave plate for broadband terahertz pulses journal January 2014
Raman optical activity spectroscopy by visible-excited coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering journal September 2015
Flexible chiral metamaterials in the terahertz regime: a comparative study of various designs journal November 2012
Terahertz spectroscopy of neurodegenerative diseases: the correlation between terahertz biophysics and pathological analysis conference January 2018
Probing Chiral Nanoparticles and Surfaces by Infrared Spectroscopy journal November 2006
Instrumentation for Vibrational Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy: Method Comparison and Newer Developments journal September 2018
Spectroscopic Analysis of Melatonin in the Terahertz Frequency Range journal November 2018
Machine Learning Techniques for THz Imaging and Time-Domain Spectroscopy journal February 2021
Terahertz Imaging and Spectroscopy in Cancer Diagnostics: A Technical Review journal January 2020
Reconfigurable Kirigami Optics and Chiral Phonons null January 2021