Metamaterials: Strong Rotational Anisotropies Affect Nonlinear Chiral Metamaterials (Adv. Mater. 13/2017)

Masked by rotational anisotropies, the nonlinear chiroptical response of a metamaterial is initially completely inaccessible. Upon rotating the sample, the chiral information emerges, as described in article number 1605110 by Ventsislav K. Valev and co-workers. The need for a general method to extract the true chiral contributions to the nonlinear optical signal is highlighted, which would be hugely valuable in the present context of increasingly complex chiral meta/nano-materials. The background image shows a polarization-anisotropy color map of second harmonic generation intensity as a function of sample angle and quarter wave-plate angle.