Transformative progress in Raman optical activity: recent advances and innovations

Abstract

Raman optical activity (ROA) is a unique chiroptical spectroscopic technique that provides detailed structural insights into chiral molecules by measuring the differential intensity of Raman scattering for right-and left-handed circularly polarized light. In the past decade, significant advancements in instrumentation, methodology, and computational modeling have transformed ROA from a specialized research tool into a widely applicable technique in molecular and pharmaceutical sciences, enabling detailed investigations of molecular chirality at the vibrational level. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent developments in ROA. It focuses on its role in absolute configuration determination, biomolecular structure characterization, and supramolecular aggregation studies. Special emphasis is placed on new approaches aimed at enhancing ROA signals, including resonance ROA, aggregation-induced ROA, and terahertz ROA. The constantly growing synergy between experimental and theoretical approaches suggests that ROA will continue to evolve, offering deeper insights into structure and dynamics of complex molecular systems.