RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN RAMAN OPTICAL-ACTIVITY INSTRUMENTATION

We describe the latest versions of two current multichannel Raman optical activity (ROA) instruments from our laboratory. Both are based on an astigmatic spectrograph equipped with a holographic notch filter and a charge-coupled device detector and employ the incident circular polarization (ICP) modulation strategy for ROA measurements, one in backscattering and the other in right-angle scattering. A selection of ROA spectra is presented which demonstrates the excellent performance characteristics of both instruments, especially in the lower wavenumber region. We also discuss the design for a future ICP instrument for backscattering ROA measurements which uses state-of-the-art stigmatic spectrograph technology and which is currently under construction in our laboratory.