| The differential, inelastic scattering of left and right circularly polarized radiation by asymmetric or dissymmetric molecules is known as Raman Optical Activity (ROA). All 3N-6 normal modes of vibration of such molecules may exhibit ROA, making ROA a very sensitive probe of molecular structure. The ROA of {dollar}alpha{dollar}-pinene and ({dollar}-{dollar})-S-chlorofluoroacetic acid was studied in this work.; Development of experimental ROA has been hindered by its extreme sensitivity to optical artefacts, the most crucial of which are those due to imperfect circular polarization. A stepwise, reproducible alignment procedure of the polarizing device, the electro-optic modulator, was developed. ROA spectra of pinene were acquired without a polarization analyzer. Such spectra, called total ROA, are more sensitive to experimental artefacts than those recorded using an analyzer to isolate the depolarized component of scattered light, and are an excellent test of the alignment procedure and are the first total ROA ever recorded.; The Raman and infrared spectra of chlorofluoroacetic acid and its sodium salt were recorded and assigned using the results of a normal coordinate analysis. The ROA spectrum was interpreted in terms of this analysis. |
