This presentation will give an overview about the generation and applications of X-ray beams that exhibit an orbital angular momentum (OAM) using helical zone plates, focusing particularly on their ability to probe chiral properties in matter. Helical (or spiral) zone plates represent an advanced class of diffractive optical lenses that can modulate the phase of light while focusing it at...
The growing interest in chirality represents a notable example of convergence between different areas of research within the realm of condensed matter. The observation of skyrmions in compounds of group B20 [1] represents only the first report of a wealth of magnetic ordering [2] and collective excitations [3] that can be realized only in the absence of inversion and mirror symmetry...
This presentation will review our recent progress studying chiral media with Mueller matrix polarimetry. A comprehensive presentation of our polarimetric method will be provided, detailing the instrumentation used, a few remarks about data analysis as well as some basic concepts about light propagation in chiral anisotropic media. We will discuss how optical characterization methods based...