Circular dichroism thermal lens microscope for sensitive chiral analysis on microchip

A novel chiral detector, a circular-dichroism thermal lens microscope (CD-TLM), was developed to realize sensitive and selective detection of small volume chiral samples on a microchip. To realize chiral recognition on TLM, an excitation beam was phase-modulated at a frequency of 1.2 kHz, and left-circularly polarized light (LCPL) and right-circularly polarized light (RCPL) were generated. Then, the differential light absorption between LCPL and RCPL, which is the CD effect, was detected as thermal lens signal intensity and phase. As a standard sample, optically active tris(ethylenediamine)cobalt(III) Co-(en)3]3+I3- aqueous solutions were used for performance evaluations. First, we verified the basic principle for selective chiral analysis by comparing the signals in intensity-modulation and phase-modulation modes of the excitation beam. Also, we found that the g-factor, which is significant for determining enantiomeric excess, agreed well with the value obtained by the CD spectrometer. The limit of detection (LOD) for enantiopure Co-(en)3]3+I3- was 6.3 x 10(-5) M (1.9 x 10(-7) abs) for (-)-Co(en)3(3+), and the sensitivity in absorbance units was more than 250 times higher than that in a CD spectrophotometer. Finally, we demonstrated enantiomeric excess determination on a microchip. The LOD was 1.7% (8.5 x 10(-7) abs) for (-)-Co(en)3(3+) and at least one order superior to the LOD of a CD spectrometer. The applicability of CD-TLM for sensitive chiral analysis on a microchip was verified, and CD-TLM is expected to be promising for microchip-based chiral synthesis and analysis systems.