Circular Dichroism and Chirality

Alison Rodger*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingEntry for encyclopedia/dictionarypeer-review

Abstract

Synonyms
Differential circularly polarized light spectroscopy

Definition
Molecules that cannot be superposed on their mirror images are known as “chiral,” from the Greek word χειρ. Examples of chiral molecules are given in Fig. 1. A molecule is achiral (i.e., not chiral) if it has a reflection plane or inversion center, so its mirror image can be rotated round to look exactly like the starting molecule. Circular dichroism (CD) is the difference in absorption of left and right circularly polarized light (Cantor and Schimmel 1980; Craig and Thirunamachanrdan 1984; Michl and Thulstrup 1986; Rodger and Nordén 1997; Barron 2004; Nordén et al. 2010).
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEncyclopedia of Biophysics
EditorsGordon C. K. Roberts
Place of PublicationBerlin, Heidelberg
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media B.V.
Pages311-313
Number of pages3
ISBN (Electronic)9783642167126
ISBN (Print)9783642167119
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013
Externally publishedYes

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