Variability of the Raman Optical Activity Spectroscopy

The article is dedicated to the 70ᵗʰ anniversary of the founding of the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS in Prague

Abstract

Spectroscopy of Raman optical activity (ROA) is rather rare because of its experimental demands and difficult interpretation of the spectra. Yet it is further developing and in the last decade we witnessed significant improvement of the experimental and theoretical methods. This brought about new knowledge regarding structure and behavior of molecules, and their interactions with light. We give a brief summary of the experience we and others obtained with this method. It appears that ROA spectroscopy gives unique information about molecules, suitable for determination of the absolute configurations, but also for studies of conformations and electronic structure.