A solid-state dedicated circularly polarized luminescence spectrophotometer: Development and application

A new solid-state dedicated circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) instrument (CPL-200CD) was successfully developed for measuring true CPL spectra for optically anisotropic samples on the basis of the Stokes-Mueller matrix approach. Electric components newly installed in the CPL-200CD include a pulse motor-driven sample rotation holder and a 100 kHz lock-in amplifier to achieve the linearly polarized luminescence measurement, which is essential for obtaining the true CPL signal for optically anisotropic samples. An acquisition approach devised for solid-state CPL analysis reduces the measurement times for a data set by ca. 98% compared with the time required in our previous method. As a result, the developed approach is very effective for samples susceptible to light-induced degradation. The theory and implementation of the method are described, and examples of its application to a CPL sample with macroscopic anisotropies are provided. An important advantage of the developed instrument is its ability to obtain molecular information for both excited and ground states because circular dichroism measurements can be performed by switching the monochromatic light to white light without rearrangement of the sample.