Optical activity temperature-dependent measurements of chiral solutions using Mueller matrix spectroscopic ellipsometry

The optical activity measurements have been widely performed using a simple polarimeter with a monochromatic source so far. This work introduces versatile and simple technique of the optical activity measurements using Mueller matrix spectroscopic ellipsometer (Woollam RC2-DI) with the spectral range from 0.73 eV to 6.42 eV (wavelength range from 193 nm to 1700 nm). First, we present the measurements of chiral solutions under constant temperature, where the dependences of the optical activity on solution concentration were determined. The measured spectra were compared to a dispersion model and the specific rotatory powers were calculated. Second, temperature-dependent measurements were performed using homemade, specially designed temperature control cells with 1 °C accuracy. The calculated specific rotatory powers were compared to commonly tabulated data for the wavelength of 589 nm with a good agreement, which proves us repeatability and robustness of the proposed method.