A New Scattered Circular Polarization Raman Optical Activity Instrument Equipped with a Charge-Coupled-Device Detector

A simple and fully computer-controlled scattered circular polarization Raman optical activity (SCP-ROA) instrument is described which consists of a fast single monochromator and a thermoelectrically cooled charge-coupled-device (CCD) detector as the key spectral elements. A conventional circular analyzer, formed by a quartz zero-order quarter-wave plate attached to a motorized 360° rotator and a fixed linear dichroic sheet polarizer, is employed for the modulation between orthogonal circular polarization states in the scattered radiation within a right-angle scattering geometry. Well-resolved depolarized SCP-ROA spectra of (1S)-(–)- α-pinene and (R)-(+)-pulegone are presented within the wave-number region of ∼550 to 1200 cm −1 as typical examples of the excellent performance of this novel multichannel ROA instrument.