Mini review: Instrumentation for vibrational circular dichroism spectroscopy, still a role for dispersive instruments.

Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) has become a standard method for determination of absolute stereochemistry, particularly now that reliable commercial instrumentation has become available. These instruments use a now well-documented Fourier transform infrared-based approach to measure VCD that has virtually displaced initial dispersive infrared-based designs. Nonetheless, many papers have appeared reporting dispersive VCD data, especially for biopolymers. Instrumentation designed with these original methods, particularly after more recent updates optimizing performance in selected spectral regions, has been shown still to have advantages for specific applications. This article presents a mini-review of dispersive VCD instrument designs and includes sample spectra obtained for various biopolymer (particularly peptide) samples. Complementary reviews of Fourier transform-VCD designs are broadly available.