Chiral media and optical rotatory dispersion by means of a simple polarimetric experiment for undergraduate students

Abstract

A simple experiment taking into account media with natural optical activity and their characterization by means of Mueller polarimetry is proposed for undergraduate Optics and Photonics laboratories. The objectives are, first, to review how to characterize dielectric and homogeneous media with natural optical activity by means of a Mueller matrix, taking into account the variation of these characteristics with wavelength, and combining concepts such as polarimetry, natural optical activity, and rotatory dispersion. Secondly, a complete and simple experiment is proposed to characterize a chiral medium by means of its Mueller matrix for different wavelengths. This experiment can be performed by undergraduate students in a standard optics laboratory. As a particular example of a chiral medium, a quartz crystal is used. The experimental results are compared with those published for crystalline quartz to validate the experiment.