We predict an optical effect associated with systems, which exhibit topologically protected states separated
by a finite distance. We develop a tight-binding model to calculate the optical selection rules in linear chains
of atoms of different lengths, and show the crucial importance of edge states. For long enough molecules ...
We predict an optical effect associated with systems, which exhibit topologically protected states separated
by a finite distance. We develop a tight-binding model to calculate the optical selection rules in linear chains
of atoms of different lengths, and show the crucial importance of edge states. For long enough molecules the
interband transitions involving these edge states are in the highly sought-after THz frequency range. Although
we have specifically considered finite carbon chains terminated by gold nanoparticles, the main results of our
paper can be generalized to various systems, which exhibit topologically protected states separated by a finite
distance.
