Toroidal circular dichroism

© 2016 American Physical Society.We demonstrate that the induced toroidal dipole, represented by currents flowing on the surface of a torus, makes a distinct and indispensable contribution to circular dichroism. We show that toroidal circular dichroism supplements the well-known mechanism involving electric dipole and magnetic dipole transitions. We illustrate this with rigorous analysis of the experimentally measured polarization-sensitive transmission spectra of an artificial metamaterial, constructed from elements of toroidal symmetry. We argue that toroidal circular dichroism will be found in large biomolecules with elements of toroidal symmetry and should be taken into account in the interpretation of circular dichroism spectra of organics.