An optically active compound

Options

A. rotates the plane polarised light
B. changing the direction of polarised light
C. do not allow plane polarised light to pass through
D. None of the above

Answer

A

Explanation

Optical rotation or optical activity is the rotation of linearly polarised light as it travels through certain materials, it occurs in solutions of chiral molecules (e.g. sugar), solids with rotated crystal planes (e.g. quartz) and spin polarised gases of atoms or molecules. Any linear polarisation of light can be written as an equal combination of light hand (RHC) and left hand (LHC) circularly polarised light.
`E_(thetaD)=E_(RHC)+e^(i2thetaD)E_(LHC)`
where, E is the electric field of light.