Optical Activity of Chiral Nanoscrolls

A first quantum-mechanical theory of chiral semiconductor nanoscrolls is presented. The theory allows one to analytically calculate the rotatory strengths and dissymmetry factors of optical transitions inside monodisperse ensembles of randomly oriented nanoscrolls, as well as to model the circular dichroism spectra of the ensembles. The theory predicts strong optical activity of semiconductor nanoscrolls upon both intraband and interband transitions, which makes them useful for various biochemical, biophysical, and nanophotonics applications. Specifically, the rotatory strengths of intraband and interband transitions were shown to reach values as high as 10^-35 erg cm³, which is three to four orders of magnitude larger than the typical rotatory strengths of small chiral molecules.