Exploring Raman optical activity for transition metals: From coordination compounds to solids

Article type: Review Article

Authors: Luber, Sandra^{; *}

Affiliations: University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Correspondence: [*] Address for correspondence: Sandra Luber, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland. E-mail: sandra.luber@chem.uzh.ch.

Abstract: We briefly review the field of Raman optical activity (ROA) for transition-metal containing systems with a focus on coordination compounds and solids. In contrast to ROA measurements for optically active solids, ROA for chiral metal complexes is a relatively novel field with only a few measurements and calculations published yet. Their results indicate a great sensitivity of ROA for the elucidation of such compounds, even in case of structurally very similar geometrical isomers, and the differentiation of several types of chirality. Resonance with one or more electronic transitions can lead to intensity enhancement in the ROA spectrum, which provides additional advantages such as shorter measurement times, lower sample amounts and valuable information about involved excited electronic states. A widely unknown variant is magnetic ROA where an external magnetic field is applied. This form is applicable to both chiral and achiral systems and has, among others, been employed to probe Zeeman splittings and sign of g factors. This review shows that ROA is a very promising field for in-depth study and design of transition-metal containing compounds and materials. It is still in its infancy and possible next steps for future research, with an emphasis on computational developments, are outlined.

Keywords: Optical activity, vibrational spectroscopy, density functional theory, chirality, transition metal

DOI: 10.3233/BSI-150115

Journal: Biomedical Spectroscopy and Imaging, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 255-268, 2015