Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Determining Crystal Thickness By Measuring Optical Rotation In Chiral Crystals, Cori Bruce, James Bish, Jamie Walker

The Corinthian

In this experiment, it will be shown that the linear relationship between pathlength and observed rotation can be applied to predict the pathlength based on the observed rotation. It should be noted, however, that the method devised will only work for chiral crystals. When aqueous NaC103 solution evaporates two rotamers will form that will rotate plane-polarized light in equal but opposite directions. Hence, the crystals must be separated to obtain linear correlations in regards to the two rotamers.