Quasistatic limit for plasmon-enhanced optical chirality

We discuss the possibility of enhancing the chiroptical response from molecules uniformly distributed around nanostructures that sustain localized plasmon resonances. We demonstrate that the average optical chirality in the near field of any plasmonic nanostructure cannot be significantly higher than that in a plane wave. This conclusion stems from the quasistatic nature of the nanoparticle-enhanced electromagnetic fields and from the fact that, at optical frequencies, the magnetic response of matter is much weaker than the electric one.