Technology for Polarization Measurement

Pharmaceuticals / Organic Chemicals

The sterochemical nature of pharmaceutical and organic chemicals, coupled with their interaction with light (specifically, their rotation of the plane of polarized light traveling through them) affords a powerful opportunity for identifying specific compounds and enantiomers. As a well-established principle in the pharmaceutical sciences, the optical activity of certain compounds can be explained by their bonding. Mirror image (chiral) structures of the same compound rotate light in opposite directions.
 
There are many applications for the use of polarized light in these fields, including:
 

Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD), the standard technique for proving absolute configurations of all new compounds
Circular Dichroism (CD) of biological molecules, a standard method for determining optical purity
Optical Rotation (OR) for determining the purity of a chiral substance

 
In addition, PM-IRRAS investigation of organic films uniquely benefits from an unambiguous detection of the differential absorption between left and right circularly polarized light.

INSTRUMENTATION

CD MicroPlate Reader

If you have questions about a particular application in pharmaceutical and/or organic chemicals and can’t find the information you need in one of these links, please contact us and ask to speak with one of our technical application scientists.