Optical Design and Sampling Methods for the Measurement of Vibrational Circular Dichroism with a Nicolet Magna FT-IR Spectrometer

Abstract

A modified design for a Fourier-transform vibrational circular dichroism (FT-VCD) spectrometer is presented. The FT-VCD instrument is based on a Nicolet Magna-IR 550 equipped with an external bench for the measurement of VCD spectra. VCD spectra of high signal quality were obtained with 20 minutes of collection rime at 4 cm(-1) resolution in the mid-infrared region by conventional sequential collection of rapid-scan VCD and transmission interferograms, the simultaneous collection of these rapid-scan interferograms and step-scan collection. OF these three methods the simultaneous rapid-scan exhibited the lowest levels of noise.