title: Optical activity measurement by use of a balanced detector optical heterodyne interferometer.
abstract: What we believe to be a novel amplitude sensitive optical heterodyne polarimeter in which a Zeeman laser is associated with balanced detector detection was set up. The aim was to measure the optical activity of a quartz crystal with a Cornu depolarizer at high accuracy. The features of this novel polarimeter, which include the use of a two-frequency laser that ensures the accuracy of the measurement, are discussed. Furthermore, the detection sensitivity of the optical activity of a quartz crystal was measured as 8.5x10(-10). To our knowledge, this is the highest sensitivity obtained for optical activity measurement of a quartz crystal when the error of the measurement is also analyzed.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophotonics Engineering, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan. cchou@ym.edu.tw
authors.forename: Chien
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chou
authors.forename: Hsiu-Ming
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Tsai
authors.forename: Kuan-Yung
authors.initials: KY
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: Li-Dek
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Chou
authors.forename: Po-Hsiong
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Huang