Relationship between photochemical mechanisms and chiral molecules

[ChiralWaltz]

I'm way outside my realm of knowledge here so perhaps I need some help polishing my question or the concepts behind it. Thank you for your patience.

Does the orientation of circularly polarized light (CPL) as a reaction mechanism influence the chirality of the molecule in a general manner, such as left handed circularly polarized light creates levorotatory molecules? More importantly, does CPL influence the optical activity in a similarly consistent manner?

L/D chiral conventions are based on nomenclature rules and therefore I suspect any influence would be coincidental. How would I Google or go about collecting data for my question?

 

[epenguin]

I do know that starting in the 1970s if not earlier many observations have been made of chirally asymetric photochemical reactions promoted by circularly polarised light, though as far as I know the effects have always been quite small.

More often than not the work is done with origin of life very much in mind.

 

[ChiralWaltz]

Thanks for the response. The relationship light has with life has been on my mind recently.