Chiral molecular separation based on opposite circularly polarized light interaction

Chiral drug molecules often exhibit distinct pharmacological activity, metabolism, and toxicity between enantiomers despite identical physicochemical properties (e.g., melting point, boiling point, solubility). Conventional physical and chemical separation methods are ineffective, whereas optical approaches using chiral light fields can induce opposing chiral optical forces for enantiomer resolution. However, the chiral optical force is significantly weaker than the coexisting achiral optical force, resulting in no significant difference in the net optical resultant force, which restricts the separation efficiency. Therefore, in order to overcome limitations of current approaches, aiming at the problem of optically efficient and universal separation of chiral molecules, we proposed a 500 to 9000nm chiral molecular separation method based on the action of oppositely polarized laser. Two left-handed and right-handed circularly polarized beams with equal power (60 to 100mW) and opposite propagation directions are used to irradiate chiral molecules at the same time, and achiral optical forces of equal size and opposite direction are generated on the molecules. The two beams interfere with each other to achieve optical separation of chiral molecules. The results show that our method does not require the introduction of specific resolution agents and imposes no restrictions on the physical and chemical properties of chiral molecules; at the same time, this method fundamentally reduces the influence of achiral optical force on the outcomes, ensuring accurate separation results, a simple system structure, and broad applicability.