(optics) Rotation of the plane of polarization of plane-polarized light, or of the major axis of the

polarization ellipse of elliptically polarized light by transmission through a substance or medium.

| Medical Dictionary: optical rotation

The change or rotation in the plane of polarization that occurs when polarized light is passed
through an optically active substance.

Optical rotation is the rotation of linearly polarized light as it travels through certain materials.
It occurs in solutions of chiral molecules such as sucrose (sugar), solids with rotated crystal
planes such as quartz, and spin-polarized gases of atoms or molecules. It is used in the sugar
industry to measure syrup concentration, in optics to manipulate polarization, in chemistry to
characterize substances in solution, in optical mineralogy to help identify certain minerals in thin
sections, and is being developed as a method to measure blood sugar concentration in diabetic
people.

History

The two asymmetric crystals forms, dextro and levorotatory, of tartaric acid.

The rotation of the orientation of linearly polarized light was first observed in 1811 in quartz by
French physicist François Jean Dominique Arago. Around this same time, Jean Baptiste Biot also
observed the effect in liquids and gases of organic substances such as turpentine. In 1822, the
English astronomer Sir Joun F.W. Herschel discovered that different crystal forms of quartz
rotated the linear polarization in different directions. Simple polarimeters have been used since
this time to measure the concentrations of simple sugars, such as glucose, in solution. In fact, one
name for glucose, dextrose, refers to the fact that it causes linearly polarized light to rotate to the
right or dexter side. Similarly, levulose, more commonly known as fructose, causes the plane of
polarization to rotate to the left. Fructose is even more strongly levorotatory than glucose is
dextrorotatory. Invert sugar syrup, commercially formed by the hydrolysis of sucrose syrup to a

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mixture of the component simple sugars, fructose and glucose, gets its name from the fact that
the conversion causes the direction of rotation to "invert" from right to left.

In 1849, Louis Pasteur resolved a problem concerning the nature of tartaric acid. A solution of
this compound derived from living things (specifically, wine lees) rotated the plane of
polarization of light passing through it, but tartaric acid derived by chemical synthesis had no
such effect, even though its reactions were identical and its elemental composition was the same.
Pasteur noticed that the crystals came in two asymmetric forms that were mirror images of one
another. Sorting the crystals by hand gave two forms of the compound: solutions of one form
rotated polarized light clockwise, while the other form rotated light counterclockwise. An equal
mix of the two had no polarizing effect on light. Pasteur deduced the molecule in question was
asymmetric and could exist in two different forms that resemble one another as would left- and
right-hand gloves, and that the organic form of the compound consisted purely of the one type.

In 1874, Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Joseph Achille Le Bel independently proposed that the
phenomenon of optical activity could be explained by assuming that the chemical bonds between
carbon atoms and their neighbors were directed towards the corners of a regular tetrahedron. This
led to a better understanding of the three-dimensional nature of molecules.

Theory
Optical activity is a type of birefringence. Any linear polarization of light can be written as an
equal combination of right-hand (RHC) and left-hand circularly (LHC) polarized light:

where is the electric field of the light. The relative phase between the two circular
polarizations, 2θ0, sets the direction of the linear polarization to θ0. In an optically active material
the two circular polarizations experience different refractive indices. The difference in the
indices quantifies the strength of the optical activity,

This difference is a characteristic of the material (for substances in solution it is given as the
specific rotation). After traveling through length L of material the two polarizations pick up a
relative phase of

where λ is the wavelength of the light (in vacuum). Consequently, the final polarization is rotated
to angle θ0 + Δθ.

Generally, the refractive index depends on the wavelength (see dispersion). The variation in
rotation with the wavelength of the light is called optical rotatory dispersion (ORD). ORD
spectra and circular dichroism spectra are related through the Kramers–Kronig relations.
Complete knowledge of one spectrum allows the calculation of the other.

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In summary, the degree of rotation depends on the color of the light (the yellow sodium D line
near 589 nm wavelength is commonly used for measurements), the path length L and the
properties of the material (e.g. Δn or specific rotation and concentration).

Areas of use

Sucrose solution concentration measuring experiment, demonstrating optical rotation.

For a pure substance in solution, if the color and path length are fixed and the specific rotation is
known, the observed rotation can be used to calculate the concentration. This usage makes a
polarimeter a tool of great importance to those who trade in or use sugar syrups in bulk.

In the presence of magnetic fields all molecules have optical activity. A magnetic field aligned in
the direction of light propagating through a material will cause the rotation of the plane of linear
polarization. This Faraday effect is one of the first discoveries of the relationship between light
and electromagnetic effects.

Optical activity or rotation should not be confused with circularly polarized light. Circularly
polarized light is often presented as a linear polarization rotating as the light propagates.
However, in this picture the polarization completely rotates in a length equal to the wavelength
(roughly one micrometre) and it can happen in vacuum. In contrast, optical activity only occurs
in a material and a complete rotation occurs in a length of millimeters to meters, depending on
the material.