A completely new light structure called a chiral vortex has been discovered, and the international team of scientists behind it say it could be crucial for the development of new drugs and accurate disease diagnosis. As the name suggests, the new light beam takes the standard light vortex, in which light spirals, and adds chirality: the ability of molecules and ions to have a left- or right-handed mirror configuration (just like the human hand).
By ensuring that light is chiral at every point, scientists can measure the chirality of molecules with high precision. The “handshake” of molecules can dramatically change the way they interact and behave, meaning that differences between molecules can be beneficial or harmful to the body.
“Recent studies show that the relative concentration of left and right molecules can serve as a biomarker for cancer, kidney and brain diseases,” says physicist Olga Smirnova of the Max Born Institute in Germany.
In addition to disease detection, chirality is also an important part of drug development. Drugs with different atomic arrangements can have unpredictable effects, distorting scientific research and causing devastating health consequences.
The new technology aims to avoid these errors. When a chiral vortex interacts with chiral molecules, the molecules emit photons. By measuring the structure of these photons, scientists can obtain precise data on how many right- and left-hand molecules are involved in the interaction.
While there are already ways to measure chirality in molecules, the researchers hope that the chiral vortex will be more reliable, accurate, and cheaper than what we currently have, and will require smaller sample sizes to achieve better results. However, it still needs further development and scaling.
“Conventional methods for determining chirality do not allow you to determine the concentration of right- and left-handed molecules in samples that contain almost the same amount of both molecules,” says physicist Nicola Mayer of the Max Born Institute.
“With our new method, it is possible to detect a small excess in the concentration of either mirror twin, perhaps enough to change a life for the better.”
“We don’t know exactly how chirality arose, but it may have emerged in deep space and then come to play an important role in many different aspects of life on Earth. Having tools that can better detect chiral molecules would be a big step forward.”
It’s a technology that could also be useful in other areas, from understanding the fundamental interactions between light and matter to controlling chemical reactions with light.
“These signals could also provide insight into how electrons move at their natural speeds inside molecules,” Mayer says. “Such an understanding could lay the groundwork for shaping the behavior of electrons and even ultimately influence chemical reactions with light.” The research was published in the journal Nature Photonics.
Source: Port Altele
