Raman optical activity: A reliable chiroptical technique

Abstract

Vibrational optical activity (VOA) is a research field in full expansion. The two main areas where VOA is used are the determination of absolute configurations and the investigation of the secondary and tertiary solution structures of biopolymers. Commercial instrumentation is available since some time for vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) and, more recently, also Raman optical activity (ROA). Here, we describe a recent instrumental implementation of forward scattering, advances in the computational interpretation of ROA, and the determination of the mechanistically important absolute configuration of (4E)-3,3-dimethyl-5-[(2R,3R)-3-methyloxiran-2-yl] pent-4-en-2-one (1).