Circular dichroism spectra of α-lactose molecular measured by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy

Abstract

Researchers have long studied circular dichroism (CD) for its enormous prospects in life sciences. Many biomolecules have vibration modes in the terahertz region, and terahertz CD spectra are robust to detect biomolecular structures. However, few studies explore the terahertz CD spectra on even natural materials due to technical challenges in both fields. Here, we report a setup of home-built terahertz time-domain spectroscopy to measure the polarization states of terahertz waves. By carefully measuring the transmission Jones matrix, we obtain terahertz CD spectra of α-lactose tablets and D-glucose tablets. Our results show that the terahertz CD spectra are sensitive to vibrational motions in biochemical compounds, which will find wide applications in biosensing and biomedical diagnostics.