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Sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy on chiral liquids: a novel technique to probe molecular chirality
M A Belkin1, T A Kulakov, K H Ernst
1Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Physical Review Letters
|November 18, 2000
Abstract:
Optical activity in sum-frequency vibrational spectra has been observed for the first time in chiral liquids. The electric-dipole allowed chiral element of the nonlinear susceptibility appears to be 3 orders of magnitude smaller than typical allowed achiral elements. This is partly because the observed chirality requires a breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation.