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Abstract

Following the recent observation of a large second-harmonic intensity difference from a monolayer of chiral molecules with left and right circularly polarized light, the scattering theory is generalized and extended to predict linear and circular intensity differences for the more versatile sum-frequency spectroscopy. Estimates indicate that intensity differences should be detectable for a typical experimental arrangement. The second-order nonlinear surface susceptibility tensor is given for different surface point groups in the electric dipole approximation; it is shown that nonlinear optical activity phenomena unambiguously probe molecular chirality only for molecular monolayers that are symmetric about the normal. Other surface symmetries can give rise to intensity differences from monolayers composed of achiral molecules. A water surface is predicted to show linear and nonlinear optical activity in the presence of an electric field parallel to the surface.