Coherent third-order spectroscopic probes of molecular chirality

The third-order optical response of a system of coupled localized anharmonic vibrations is studied using a Green's function solution of the nonlinear exciton equations for bosonized excitons, which are treated as interacting quasiparticles. The explicit calculation of two-exciton states is avoided and the scattering of quasiparticles provides the mechanism of optical nonlinearities. To first-order in the optical wave vector we find several rotationally invariant tensor components for isotropic ensembles which are induced by chirality. The nonlocal nonlinear susceptibility tensor is calculated for infinitely large periodic structures in momentum space, where the problem size reduces to the exciton interaction radius. Applications are made to alpha and 3(10) helical infinite peptides. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.