Influence of chirality in energy transfer of fluorescent molecules to twisted bilayer graphene

Abstract

Chirality plays a crucial role in chemical reactions and biological processes, highlighting the need for reliable enantioselective sensing techniques. Established chiroptical sensing methods, such as circular dichroism, are limited by low sensitivities due to weak light-matter interactions. To overcome this, sensing methods based on local enhancements of chiral light-matter interactions have been proposed. We explore a novel approach to enantiomeric sensing based on resonant energy transfer from fluorescent molecules to twisted bilayer graphene (TBG). With both systems being intrinsically chiral, the efficiency of energy transfer is expected to depend on the chirality, leading to enhanced transfer and thus a measurable stronger reduction of the molecule’s lifetime for matched chiralities. We perform numerical simulations of the electric-magnetic interaction between a chiral molecule and TBG, leading to dissymmetries comparable with theoretical calculations. Although the simulations do not resolve the discrepancy between experiment and theory, they provide promising insights into the distance dependence, potentially enabling longerranged chiral interactions. Furthermore, we present a sample that allows the reproduction of experimental findings and potentially enables the first measurements of the angle dependence of energy transfer to TBG and the influence of chirality.