Chiral Effects in Elastic Electron-Molecule Collisions

Abstract

The concept of chirality, established about 100 years ago, plays an important role in many domains of recent science. It was first discovered as a biological phenomenon. Most of the macromolecules in living organisms possess two stereo isomeric forms (L and D), which are space-reflected images of each other. When these molecules are synthesised in the laboratory under circumstances simulating those of the earth in the early stages of biological evolution the two isomers appear with equal probability. Nevertheless, as discovered by Pasteur, macromolecules occuring in living organisms belong exclusively to one of the possible isomeric forms usually the L-form in amino-acids and the D-form for sugars.