Raman Optical Activity of 1T-TaS₂.

Abstract

Measurements of optical activity can be readily performed in transparent matter by means of a rotation of transmitted light polarization. In the case of opaque bulk materials, such measurements cannot be performed, making it difficult to assess possible chiral properties. In this work, we present full angular polarization dependencies of the Raman modes of bulk 1T-TaS₂, which has recently been suggested to have chiral properties after pulsed laser excitation. We found that a mechanical rotation of the sample does not alter polarization-resolved Raman spectra, which can only be explained by introducing an antisymmetric Raman tensor, frequently used to describe Raman optical activity (ROA). Raman spectra obtained under circularly polarized excitation demonstrate that 1T-TaS₂ indeed shows ROA, providing strong evidence that 1T-TaS₂ is chiral under the used conditions of laser excitation. Our results suggest that ROA may be used as a universal tool to study chiral properties of quantum materials.