Strong Chiro-Optical Activity of Plasmonic Metasurfaces with Inverted Pyramid Arrays

Chiral plasmonics has emerged as a powerful tool for manipulating light at the nanoscale with unprecedented control over light polarization. The advances in nanofabrication have led to the creation of nanostructures that support strong chiroptical responses. However, the complexity of the fabrication and the associated high costs remain major challenges in upscaling these architectures. Here, we report on the development of chiral plasmonic metasurfaces composed of inverted pyramid arrays with mismatched directions with respect to the lattice vectors of the array. These metasurfaces are fabricated using a combination of soft lithography and anisotropic etching, resulting in cost-effective and reproducible chiral nanostructures without the need for expensive equipment. The fabricated metasurfaces exhibit high differential transmittance values in the visible spectrum, which are among the highest reported for plasmonic films. Theoretical modeling corroborates the experimental results, demonstrating the significant influence of the mismatch angle on the chiral behavior. Complete polarimetric characterization reveals exceptional chiro-optical activity with circular birefringence exceeding 375°/μm and Kuhn's dissymmetry factors (g-factors) approaching unity.