Chiral molecules exist in two forms that are structurally identical but are mirror images of each other, which are called enantiomers. According to researchers, it is critical in biochemistry and toxicology, as well as in drug development, to separate enantiomers from each other so that only the desired variant gets into a drug.

The current method for distinguishing between enantiomers is called circular dichroism. The new method, described in the scientific journal Nature Photonics, exploits so-called helical dichroism "which provides a completely new kind of light-matter interaction" which "can exploit it perfectly to distinguish between enantiomers," said Jérémy Rouxel, PhD, first author of the study and a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.

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