Experimental Methods for Measuring Optical Rotatory Dispersion: Survey and Outlook

The measurement of optical rotation (OR) and optical rotatory dispersion has been finding renewed interest for some years, because of advancement in computational methods and in the performance of new experiments. Here, we shortly review the traditional and most-used experimental methods. We define and discuss the two main types of approaches in measuring OR: the intensity method and the optical null method. We report on some new results obtained by redesigning experiments based on the first approach, by adapting nonsophisticated hardware to current circular dichroism instrumentation. Chirality 23: 711-716, 2011. (C) 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.