Chiral optical fields: a unified formulation of helicity scattered from particles and dichroism enhancement.

We establish a general unified formulation which, using the optical theorem of electromagnetic helicity, shows that dichorism is a phenomenon arising in any scattering-or diffraction-process, elastic or not, of chiral electromagnetic fields by objects either chiral or achiral. It is shown how this approach paves the way to overcoming well-known limitations of standard circular dichroism, like its weak signal or the difficulties of using it with magnetodielectric particles. Based on the angular spectrum, representation of optical fields with only right circular or left circular plane waves, we introduce beams with transverse elliptic polarization and possessing a longitudinal component. Then, our formulation for general optical fields shows how to enhance the extinction rate of incident helicity (and therefore the dichroism signal) versus that of energy of the light scattered or emitted by a particle, or vice versa.This article is part of the themed issue 'New horizons for nanophotonics'.