Broadband Mueller ellipsometer as an all-in-one tool for spectral and temporal analysis of mutarotation kinetics

Spectroscopic Mueller matrix ellipsometry is becoming increasingly routine across physical branches of science, even outside optics. The highly sensitive tracking of the polarization-related physical properties offers a reliable and non-destructive analysis of virtually any sample at hand. If coupled with a physical model, it is impeccable in performance and irreplaceable in versatility. Nonetheless, this method is rarely adopted interdisciplinarily, and when it is, it often plays a supporting role, which does not take benefit of its full potential. To bridge this gap, we present Mueller matrix ellipsometry in the context of chiroptical spectroscopy. In this work, we utilize a commercial broadband Mueller ellipsometer to analyze the optical activity of a saccharides solution. We verify the correctness of the method in the first place by studying the well-known rotatory power of glucose, fructose, and sucrose. By employing a physically meaningful dispersion model, we obtain 2π-unwrapped absolute specific rotations. Besides that, we demonstrate the capability of tracing the glucose mutarotation kinetics from just one set of measurements. Coupling the Mueller matrix ellipsometry with the proposed dispersion model ultimately leads to the precisely determined mutarotation rate constants and spectrally and temporally resolved gyration tensor of individual glucose anomers. In this view, Mueller matrix ellipsometry may stand as an offbeat yet equal technique to those considered classical chiroptical spectroscopy techniques, which may help open new opportunities for broader polarimetric applications in biomedicine and chemistry.