A polarimeter for measuring the optical rotation angle in chiral medium

Abstract

A polarimeter based on Stokes-Mueller formalism and rotating-wave-plate Stokes polarimeter is successfully developed to measure the optical rotation angle in a chiral medium. The average relative error in the measured rotation angles of glucose solutions with concentrations ranging from 0 to 1.2g/dl is determined to be 3.78%. The correlation coefficient between the measured rotation angle and the glucose concentration is found to be 0.9995, while the standard deviation is just 0.00376 degrees. From the inspection of measured rotation angle in the sol-gel materials containing C 17 H 17 ClO 6 with concentrations ranging from 0 to 0.0665g/ml, the average relative error in the measured rotation angles is determined to be 3.63%. Consequently, the derived algorithm for measuring the optical rotation angle of a chiral medium is feasible.