Abstract
A review is given of the optical properties of isotropic chiral media, based on the symmetrized constitutive relations of Condon. The review includes discussion of wave propagation in chiral media, and derivation of the reflection and transmission amplitudes of an isotropic optically active medium, and of a layer resting on a substrate. Boundary conditions and energy conservation relations are derived. For the chiral layer, simple formulae are given for the reflection and transmission coefficients at normal incidence, in the weak chirality limit, near the critical angles, and for a thin layer. Analytic expressions are given for all the reflection and transmission amplitudes in the general case. An ellipsometric method of measuring the chirality of very small sample volumes is suggested.