Premature Greying of the Hair

Detecting Chirality in Molecules by Linearly Polarized Laser Fields

“…These include photoelectron circular dichroism using intense laser pulses or synchrotron radiation [1,6,9], and an approach based on laser ionizationinduced Coulomb explosion imaging [8,18]. The most relevant for the present work, however, is the microwave three-wave mixing experiment [7,10,19]. Here, the resonant microwave fields are used to couple three selected rotational energy levels of a chiral molecule that are connected by transitions via three different dipole projections.…”

“…Due to the opposite sign of one of the dipole moment projections between two enantiomers, they evolve with intrinsically different total phases and this can be seen in the phase of the emitted radiation. By measuring the absolute amplitude of the emitted signal, the enantiomeric excess and absolute configuration can be quantified [20].The major advantages of the gas phase resonant threewave mixing technique are (i) its high sensitivity to even a tiny enantiomeric excess and (ii) applicability to the analysis of mixtures of different conformers and stereoisomers [19]. The disadvantage is that the method can only be used on molecules characterized by three non-zero projections of the the permanent electric dipole (in the principal axis system).…”

“…The major advantages of the gas phase resonant threewave mixing technique are (i) its high sensitivity to even a tiny enantiomeric excess and (ii) applicability to the analysis of mixtures of different conformers and stereoisomers [19]. The disadvantage is that the method can only be used on molecules characterized by three non-zero projections of the the permanent electric dipole (in the principal axis system).…”