Molecules, birefringence rotation

The polarization properties of single-molecule fluorescence excitation spectra have been explored and utilized to detennine botli tlie molecular transition dipole moment orientation and tlie deptli of single pentacene molecules in a /7-teriDhenyl crystal, taking into account tlie rotation of tlie polarization of tlie excitation light by tlie birefringent... 

Anisotropic behaviour is also exhibited in optical properties and orientation effects can be observed and to some extent measured by birefringence methods. In such oriented materials the molecules are in effect frozen in an unstable state and they will normally endeavour to take up a more coiled conformation due to rotation about the single bonds. If an oriented sample is heated up the molecules will start to coil as soon as they possess sufficient energy and the mass will often distort. Because of this oriented materials usually have a lower heat distortion temperature than non-oriented polymers. 

The rotational diffusion constant in water at 25° and neutral pH as measured by electric birefringence (258) is 230 X 105 sec-1 or 0.73 X HT8 sec as a relaxation time. For a hydrodynamic ellipsoid of dimensions 66 X 22 A and a molecular weight of 14,000, the calculated relaxation tilde is 0.72 X 10-8 sec. However, the apparent asymmetry of the molecule from the X-ray structure corresponds to an axial ratio of no more than 2 1 rather than 3 1. 

This result demonstrates the tendency of an optically active material to rotate the electric vector as it propagates through the sample. Materials possessing this property are normally composed of molecules having chiral symmetry. This effect leads to circular birefringence and circular dichroism, two optical properties that are frequently used in the characterization of biomaterials. 

The polarizability tensor, a, introduced in section 4.1.2, is a measure of the facility of the electron distribution to distortion by an imposed electric field. The structure of the electron distribution will generally be anisotropic, giving rise to intrinsic birefringence. This optical anisotropy reflects the average electron distribution whereas vibrational and rotational modes of the molecules making up a sample will cause the polarizability to fluctuate in time. These modes are discrete, and considering a particular vibrational frequency, vk, the oscillating polarizability can be modeled as... 

There is no special crystallization technique required to prepare chiral crystals from achiral organic compounds. Ordinary crystallization techniques can be employed i.e., a hot saturated solution of a compound in a suitable solvent is slowly cooled, or a saturated solution is slowly evaporated to obtain crystals. Whether the molecule is chiral can be easily differentiated by the measurement of optical rotation in solution using a polarimeter. However, there are great difficulties in measuring the optical rotation of crystalline substances due to the large birefringence [33]. Solid-state circular dichroism (CD) spectral measurements of... 

The liquid phase of molecular matter is usually isotropic at equilibrium but becomes birefringent in response to an externally applied torque. The computer can be used to simulate (1) the development of this birefringence —the rise transient (2) the properties of the liquid at equilibrium under the influence of an arbitrarily strong torque and (3) the return to equilibrium when the torques are removed instantaneously—the fall transient. Evans initially considered the general case of the asymmetric top (C2 symmetry) diffusing in three-dimensional space and made no assumptions about the nature of the rotational and translational motion other than those inherent in the simulation technique itself. A sample of 108 such molecules was taken, each molecule s orientation described by three unit vectors, e, Cg, and parallel to its principal moment-of-inertia axes. 

The effects of the role of matrix birefringence, photoselection, and rotational diffusion on measuring the circular dichroism of chiral excited triplets embedded in a rigid matrix have been examined. The techniques described in this paper are applied to chiral dimer-like molecules in the binaphthyl and spirobifluorene series. Natural and magnetic circular dichroism spectra of selenofenchone provide evidence for a singlet-triplet component of the n - IT transition. ... 

Table 44 The magnetochiral birefringence, An [in 10 cm /(T g)], per unit magnetic field and density for various chiral molecules. The theoretical method is either the Hartree-Fock or the B3LYP density-functional method, and the calculations were performed for either the gas phase or a solution. For the last two molecules, not only the most stable isomer was considered but also mixtures of six stable structures with populations according to a Boltzmann distribution. [a] is the specific optical rotation [in deg/(cm dm g)]. All results are from ref. 101... 

In principle, for kineticaEy rigid chain molecules, just as for ellipsoids, Eq. (62) is obtained as a consequence of Eq. (61) since in this case the value and orientation of flow birefringence are determined by the rotational mobility of a molecule as a whole. However, for an assembly of chains of similar masses but frozen in different conformations it is necessary to take into account the conformational distribution. 

Many complex fluids contain orientable molecules, particles, and microstmctures that rotate underflow, and under electric and magnetic fields. If these molecules or microstructures have anisotropic polarizabilities, then the index of refraction of the sample will be orientation-dependent, and thus the sample will be birefringent. In general, the anisotropic part of the index of refraction is a tensor n that is related to the polarizability a of the sample. The polarizability is the tendency of the sample to become polarized when an electric field is applied thus P = a E, where P is the polarization and E is the imposed electric field. When the anisotropic part of the index of refraction is much smaller than the isotropic part (the usual case), the index-of-refraction tensor n can be related to a by the Lorentz-Lorenz formula ... 

Another mechanism responsible for the optically induced anisotropy is angular redistribution (AR) of molecules. This mechanism has been widely developed to explain photoinduced birefringence and dichroism. In most experimental cases, there is evidence of some rotation of molecules during the photoisomerization cycle (see Reference 2, for example). This rotation results in AR, because the molecules remain longer in states with lower excitation probability, and so more molecules are accumulated perpendicular to the pump polarization. The AR process is initiated by the AHB, and these two processes should be studied simultaneously in the framework of general... 

The nonlinear optical properties of rotaxanes and catenanes were studied mainly by three techniques the optical second and third harmonic generation and the electro-optic Kerr effect. As already mentioned, the harmonic generation techniques give the fast, electronic in origin, molecular and bulk hyperpolarizabili-ties, whereas the electro-optic methods are sensitive to all effects which induce optical birefringence, such as e.g. the rotation of molecules. Therefore the last technique is very useful to study the rotational mobility of molecules and/or their parts. 

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