Optical Activity of Solids from First Principles

Within the framework of independent particle approximation, the optical activity tensor of solids is formulated as from different contributions: the magnetic dipole, electric quadrupole, and band dispersion terms. The first two terms have similar counterparts in the theory of finite systems, while the last term is unique for crystals. The magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole transition moments are calculated with a sum-over-states formulation. We apply the formulation to calculate and analyze the optical rotation of elemental tellurium and the circular dichroism of (6,4) carbon nanotube. Decomposed optical activity into different contributions are discussed. The calculated spectra agree well with experiments. As a showcase of achiral crystals, we calculate the optical activity of wurtzite GaN.