Amplification of Photochemical Chiroptical Activity of Chiral Gold Nanocubes

Chiral plasmonic nanostructures enable exceptionally high dissymmetry factors (g-factors) compared to chiral molecules and present unparalleled opportunities in light manipulation, polarization-sensitive photochemistry, and chiral sensing. Here polarization-dependent plasmonic chemistry on chiral gold nanocubes (AuNCs) is presented, leveraging the high sensitivity of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The AuNCs exhibit strong optical activity and localized surface plasmon resonances acting as highly efficient nanoscale light antennae. Employing the hot electron-induced dehalogenation of 8-Bromoadenine as a model reaction, it is demonstrated that circularly polarized light induces asymmetric reaction rates due to circular dichroism (CD) in hot electron generation efficiency. Astonishingly, the photochemical g-factor, quantified by the differential reaction rate coefficients under l…