The optical rotatory dispersion of quartz

Abstract

Many formulæ have been proposed to express numerically the rapid increase of the rotatory power of quartz with decrease of wavelength. An examination of these formulæ shows that they are wholly inappropriate for the case of quartz. It has been shown that the entire range of data from the visible to the extreme ultraviolet is accurately represented by a new type of formula involving only two constants,viz.,

$$\rho = \frac{{k\lambda ^2 }}{{(\lambda ^2 - \lambda _0 ^2 )^2 }},$$

wherek=7·19 and γ₀ = 0·0926283μ. A theoretical interpretation of the new formula has been given on the basis of a simple coupled oscillator model.