Identification and characterization of optically active materials excited by sources in the chiral medium

Biological and chemical materials that possess chiral properties can be identified and characterized through their optical activity. Optical activity (Optical Rotation and Circular Dichroism) manifests itself through the measurement of select elements of the Mueller matrix that are proportional to the cross polarized reflection and transmission coefficients for waves that are incident in free space upon the optically active medium. Thus no polar decomposition is required to identify optical activity. Thus it is not necessary to measure all sixteen elements of the Mueller Matrix. We analyze here in detail the case when the exciting sources lie below the interface in the chiral material, which could be a fluid. Explicit expressions, to within first order of the chiral measure, are obtained for the corresponding reflection and transmission matrices for circularly and linearly polarized waves. These results are compared with the results for excitations above the interface in free space. Significant differences are found between the corresponding expressions for the reflection and transmission matrices, they are related to the Mueller matrix elements and the Differential Circular Reflection. These results have numerous biological, biochemical, and medical applications.