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Vibrational Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy of Chiral Molecules |
Three-dimensional structure plays a crucial role in how a chiral molecule can recognize another chiral binding partner or its chiral surrounding.
However, structure determination of chiral molecules is a highly challenging problem. In our laboratory, we apply two new chiroptical tools,
namely vibrational circular dichroism spectroscopy and ab initio density functional theory, to determine the structures of chiral molecules. |
VCD spectroscopy is a powerful bioanalytical tool that has the potential to become a viable alternative
to X-ray crystallography for absolute structure determinations. It is the differential absorption of right and left circularly polarized
light by a chiral molecule in the infrared region. Each vibration in a chiral molecule exhibits a preference for absorbing either right or
left circularly polarized light. VCD spectra are extremely sensitive to the absolute configurations and to the conformational structures of
chiral molecules.
To obtain a VCD spectrum, we utilize a Fourier transform vibrational circular dichroism spectrometer from Bruker Optics.
It consists of a VERTEX70 FTIR spectrometer plus a Polarization Modulation Accessorry PMA50. |
Currenty, we use VCD spectrocopy to probe solvation effects in chiroptical measurements and to determine absolute configurations of chiral molecules such as carbohydrates.Ref: M. Losada and Y. Xu, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2007, (First published on the web: 03 May 2007 DOI: 10.1039/b703368k).
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Copyright © 2005 Dr. Xu's lab |