Chiral Rotational Spectroscopy

Abstract

We introduce chiral rotational spectroscopy: a new technique that enables the determination of the orientated optical activity pseudotensor components $B_{XX}$, $B_{YY}$ and $B_{ZZ}$ of chiral molecules, in a manner that reveals the enantiomeric constitution of a sample and provides an incisive signal even for a racemate. Chiral rotational spectroscopy could find particular use in the analysis of molecules that are chiral solely by virtue of their isotopic constitution and molecules with multiple chiral centres. The principles that underpin chiral rotational spectroscopy could be exploited moreover in the search for molecular chirality in space, which, if found, might add weight to hypotheses that biological homochirality and indeed life itself are of cosmic origin. A basic design for a chiral rotational spectrometer together with a model of its functionality is given. Our proposed technique offers the more familiar polarisability components ${\alpha }_{XX}$, ${\alpha }_{YY}$ and ${\alpha }_{ZZ}$ as by-products, which could see it find use even for achiral molecules.

References in corpus (3)

• Chiral near fields generated from plasmonic lattices
• Proposal for Chiral Detection by the AC Stark-Effect
• Stark Field Modulated Microwave Detection of Molecular Chirality

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Quantum control of molecular rotation
• Two-path interference for enantiomer-selective state transfer of chiral molecules
• Determination of enantiomeric excess with chirality-dependent AC Stark effects in cyclic three-level models
• Chiral optical fields: A unified formulation of helicity scattered from particles and dichroism enhancement
• On enhanced sensing of chiral molecules in optical cavities
• Rotational properties of two interacting cold polar molecules: linear, symmetric, and asymmetric tops