Detecting Antibody-Antigen Interactions with Chiral Plasmons: Factors Influencing Chiral Plasmonic Sensing

Chiral near fields possessing enhanced asymmetry (superchirality), created by the interaction of light with (chiral) nanostructures, potentially provide a route to novel sensing and metrology technologies for biophysical applications. However, the mechanisms by which these near fields lead to the detection of chiral media is still poorly understood. Using a combination of numerical modelling and experimental measurements on an antibody-antigen exemplar system we illustrate important factors that influence the efficacy of chiral sensing. We demonstrate that localised and lattice chiral resonances display enantiomeric sensitivity. However, only the localised resonances exhibit strong dependency on the structure of the chiral media detected. This can be attributed to the ability of birefringent chiral layers to strongly modify the properties of near fields by acting as a sink / source of optical chirality, and hence alter inductive coupling between nanostructure elements. In addition, we highlight how surface morphology / defects may amplify sensing capabilities of localised chiral plasmonic modes by mediating inductive coupling.