Macroscopic Vortex-Induced Optical Activity in Silver Nanowires

In this paper, for the first time, we present vortex-induced optical activity in Ag nanowires. We demonstrate that the handedness of the observed optical activity depends on the orientation of the applied vortex. Using alignment studies on the Ag nanowires, we further confirm that the optical activity is due to the orientation and motion of the Ag NWs within the intrinsically chiral vortex. Our results provide fundamental insights in the behavior of nanowires in solution and understanding of optical activity in one-dimensional nanostructures.