Chiral molecules detection - preface to a special issue in 'Symmetry' Journal (MDPI publisher)

Zak, Emil

Communication

PUBDB-2021-01921

Chiral molecules detection - preface to a special issue in 'Symmetry' Journal (MDPI publisher)

Zak, E. (Corresponding author)CFEL*DESY*

2021

Abstract: Chirality is prevalent in the natural environment. Systems of biological significance more often than not exist in two enantiomeric (mirror-image) forms, which are non-superimposableby rotations and translations in space. Dating back to Pasteur, there has been a long and formidable history of methods for determining the absolute handedness of chemicals and the enantiomeric excess in mixtures of chiral compounds.Several modernly expanded techniques for studying chirality had already given a paramount impact on chemistry, biology and medicine. Circular dichroism spectroscopy, microwave three-wave mixing, Coulomb explosion especially combined with COLTRIMS (cold target recoil ion momentum spectroscopy), or modern table-top experiments utilizing the photo-electron circular dichroism, are only few out of many methods used to probe chirality in the gas phase molecules.Rapid development of the femtosecond and attosecond laser technology allowed to probe even deeper into the realm where the molecular chirality emerges - on the time-scale of the electronic motions. We therefore may at least consider pondering on the non-static nature of chirality, studying which has recently become a laboratory reality. This exciting time, in which the experiment tentatively reaches into the molecular frame of chiral molecules at (sub-)femtosecond and (sub-)angstroms resolution, must bring new insights and discoveries.Past two decades have been a witness to a pursuit in theoretical methods as well, which parallel to the experiment, aim at underpinning the nature of chirality by proposing ever new and more sensitive probes of chirality. Some of the theoretical methods present a significant computational challenge, which triggers algorithmic developments in quantum calculations.We welcome theoretical as well as experimental contributions covering concepts and techniques not only for measuring the enantiomeric excess in mixtures of chiral molecules, but also approaches to discriminate chiral species, separate them or to unravel the role of the nuclear and electronic motion in interacting chiral systems.

Note: This is a short description for a planned special issue 'chiral molecules detection' in the Symmetry Journal (MDPI). The leaflet is going to be visible on the publisher's website. I was invited to guest edit the special issue.

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