Photochemically Induced Circular Dichroism of Semiconductor Quantum Dots

Development of chiral quantum dots (QDs) is an emerging field, as these nanomaterials could find a range of potential applications including sensing, imaging, asymmetric catalysis, enantiomeric separation, spintronics, and as a circularly polarized light sources. Here, we report an investigation of optical activity which was photochemically induced by illumination of QDs with circularly polarized light; the photo-induced circular dichroism was quantitatively estimated, and it was shown that the photo-induced chemical reaction proceeds selectively, depending on the handedness of circularly polarized light.