The recent synthesis of enantiomerically pure (À)-(M)-s- [4]helicene has provided an archetype helical model system for vibrational optical activity, comparable to what p-helicenes represent in the field of electronic optical activity. We present the first measurements and the first calculations of the Raman optical activity (ROA) of this interesting molecule. Observed and calculated ROA is large throughout the vibrational spectrum, in agreement with expectations, and spectacular effects, with D values close to 0.5%, occur in the 900-cm À1 region. Agreement between the experimental spectrum and the theoretical one, calculated with densityfunctional theory for the vibrational part and Hartree-Fock linear response theory for the molecular electronic tensors, is excellent, clearly the best that has been achieved to date in the field. This allows us to place confidence in the results of an analysis of Raman and ROA scattering generation in the molecule, obtained by a newly developed graphical procedure for extracting this kind of information from ab initio calculations. One finds that relative contributions made by carbon and hydrogen atoms can be comparable in size, but can also vary considerably, even between closely lying vibrations, and that, for most vibrations, the generation of ROA difference intensity is distributed rather differently than that of Raman intensity over the shape of the molecule. The sign of the ROA is, for the set of vibrations in the 900-cm À1 region, which we analyze in detail, determined by coupling terms between the two halves of the molecule, while Raman intensity is primarily generated within the two fragments, with coupling terms between them only adding to or substracting from it.Introduction. ± The molecules chosen as model systems in the first successful observations of Raman optical activity (ROA) and vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) of molecular origin owed their chirality to the presence of a stereogenic C-atom carrying four different substituents [1] [2]. The rigid frame of bicyclic terpenes was soon included in the list of model chromophores in vibrational optical activity [3] [4]. Both systems also served as vehicles for the first successful recording of entire vibrational optical-activity spectra [5]. It subsequently became clear that the three-dimensional rigid structure of bicyclic compounds not only provided the benefit of the absence of conformational mobility, but also tended to yield sizable chiroptical effects throughout the vibrational spectrum. Bicyclic terpenes, a-pinene in particular, have become standard compounds for calibrating ROA and VCD spectrometers, and for comparing their performance [6] [7].A plethora of other kinds of molecules, considered suitable as model compounds for vibrational optical activity for one reason or another, has since been investigated.