Novel biological metamaterials, nanoscale optical devices, and Polarimetric Exploratory Data Analysis (pEDA)

摘要

This study reports that certain biological macromolecules, colloidal suspensions, or organic molecular structures, with very large optical activities, exhibit enhanced transmission, backscattering and signal characteristics. Although by definition, these molecular nanocomposite structures can be classified as metamaterials, whether these macromolecules exhibit uniquely defined metamaterial characteristics, deserves a careful study before any assessment can be made. Based on the above, a new optical polarimetric metrics definition is introduced, namely, the Polarimetric Exploratory Data Analysis (pEDA) aimed to quantify the signal characteristics of photons interacting with optically active media, in terms of enhanced contrast and potential discriminant descriptors, without excluding expansion of the same metrics to other areas of research.