vibrational circular dichroism

Vibrational circular dichroism, which uses light from the infrared energy region, is used for structural studies of small organic molecules, and most recently proteins and DNA.

Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) is a spectroscopic technique which detects differences in attenuation of left and right circularly polarized light passing through a sample.

Alternative techniques are Optical rotatory dispersion, vibrational circular dichroism and the use of chiral shift reagents in proton NMR.

The more recent developments of vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) techniques for proteins, currently involving Fourier transform (FFT) instruments, provide powerful means for determining protein conformations in solution even for very large protein molecules.