Optical activity of solid polymers

Abstract The methods of measuring optical activity of solid polymers are reviewed. The extreme difficulty of the methods is exhibited in serious drawbacks of the traditional statistical methods. The invention of HAUP (high accuracy universal polarimeter) method by Kobayashi et al. has opened a way to perfect measurements of gyro-optical properties of any solids. As an example of application of the HAUP method to helical polymers, the process of analyzing the gyration tensor components of poly-L-lactic acid and poly-D-lactic acid is illustrated in details.