We design and characterize chiro-optical effects in nanostructured materials, inspired by low-cost self-assembling fabrication, which can be used to obtain both single resonant nanostructures and metamaterials. We numerically show how near- and far-field chirality can be obtained in simple geometries based on plasmonic nanohole arrays or nanowires asymmetrically covered by metal. Then, we perform conventional experiments based on extinction or reflection response with a widely tunable near-infrared laser; these allow us to characterize diverse asymmetrically nanostructured substrates under tunable oblique incidence and sample rotation, thus providing direct insight into the metamaterial-governed resonances. Moreover, we employ photothermal techniques to measure the influence of the chiral response on the thermal signal. Specifically, we use photo-acoustic spectroscopy to directly measure the total absorption in the metasurface, and monitor its dependence on the laser excitation handedness. Finally, the photo-thermal deflection technique provides unconvetional insighit into chirality-governed diffraction effects in metamaterials with asymmetric plasmonic layers.
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