Abstract
Light is the massless elementary particle that mediates the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental physical forces governing our universe and material world. Light is known to reveal linear, angular, and angular orbital momenta. Traditionally, the angular momentum is called circularly polarized light (CPL) and/or photonic spin. On the other hand, the angular orbital momentum that was found over three decades ago is now called light vortex, optical vortex, twisted photon, spiral light, or helical light. This review highlights several outcomes, reported over the past 150 years, that CPL, linearly polarized light (LPL) in a magnetic field, and light vortex are interplaying with racemic chiral substances and achiral substances. The interactions involve asymmetric photodecomposition, synthesis, and photoresolution, leading to the generation of nanometer size spiral and twisted objects. Moreover, regarding one of the greatest curious question whether the origin of biomolecular handedness is terrestrial or extraterrestrial, this review highlights several topics, including possible interactions of matter with longitudinal spinning electrons and handed anti-neutrinos, the recent finding of circularly polarized radiation on the order of 0.6% from γ-ray bursts (GRB) due to supernova explosions, and the first detection of chiral propylene oxide existing in the molecular clouds of our Milky Way galaxy.
