On enhanced sensing of chiral molecules in optical cavities

Recently, we introduced an optical cavity in the infrared fingerprint spectral region for enhanced sensing of chiral molecules within the cavity (Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 033201 (2020)). Here, we discuss a simplified version of this cavity in which one of the formerly two silicon disk arrays is replaced by a homogenous, unstructured thin silicon film. We show that CD enhancement factors exceeding 100 are still possible, while the line shape of the resonances changes. Furthermore, we investigate the reduction of the CD enhancement versus molecule density due to non-helicity preserving interaction of light with the molecules in the cavity.