A new multichannel Raman optical activity instrument

A fully computer-controlled Raman optical activity spectrometer equipped with an intensified diode array detector is described. Despite using a conventional single-lens light collection system for simplicity, both polarized and depolarized Raman optical activity spectra can be obtained rapidly and routinely. A novel double grating spectrograph design permits good spectra to be obtained down to 50 cm−1 in liquids. Natural spectra of the chiral samples (–)-α-pinene and (+)-methylcyclohexanone and magnetic spectra of iridium (IV) hexachloride are presented