Circular dichroism (CD) caused by the response of a chiral object to circularly polarized light has been well established, and the strong CD of plasmonic metamolecules has also become of interest in recent years; however, their response if the light also has orbital angular momentum is unclear. In this paper, the dichroism of a plasmonic cuboid-protuberance chiral structure under the illumination of a light beam with both orbital and spin angular momenta is numerically investigated. Distinguished spectra are observed under the different momenta. The circular dichroism under the combination of vortex beam and light spin is enhanced. This phenomenon is attributed to the partial spatial excitation of the nanoparticle, and the strong dichroism is simultaneously caused because of the interaction of the induced electric and magnetic modes and other higher-order modes caused by the partial excitation of the vortex beam. This research provides further insight into chiral light-matter interactions and the dichroism of light with orbital angular momentum.

• Received 25 May 2020
• Accepted 1 September 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.102.033525