Beschreibung:
The possibility to investigate optical activity of uniaxial media by measuring the difference between the intensities of reflected electromagnetic waves (emw) of different circular polarization (reflection optical activity—ROA) is discussed. The components of the gyration tensor and the polarization of the normal emw in uniaxial media are found. The reflection of emw is studied in two cases: (a) optical axis normal to the boundary; (b) optical axis normal to the plane of incidence. Three modifications of differential spectroscopy are proposed: (1) left and right circularly polarized waves—usual reflection; (2) total reflection–circular polarization (TROA); (3) total reflection of linearly polarized waves with different azimuths of vibration. The specific features of the proposed methods (ROA and TROA) are discussed as well as the possibility of studying the optical activity induced by nondegenerate and degenerate excitations (vibrations).