In order to gain maximum information, the interaction or emission of light should be measured as a function of wavelength and the common feature of all optical spectrometers is therefore a mechanism for wavelength selection.
Optical spectrometers are concerned with electromagnetic radiation that falls within the optical region of the electromagnetic spectrum which is light spanning the ultraviolet, visible and infrared wavelength regions of the spectrum. The goal of any optical spectrometer is to measure the interaction (absorption, reflection, scattering) of electromagnetic radiation with a sample or the emission (fluorescence, phosphorescence, electroluminescence) of electromagnetic radiation from a sample. The most ubiquitous type of spectrometer used for research are optical spectrometers and when someone simply says ‘spectrometer’, without an additional qualifier, they are usually referring to an optical spectrometer and this diverse family of spectrometers is the focus of this article. Right: Mass spectrometer (Scion Instruments GC-MS spectrometer). Left: Optical spectrometer (Edinburgh Instruments FS5 spectrofluorometer).Ĭentre: NMR spectrometer (Agilent 800 MHz NMR spectrometer). This could be a mass-to-charge ratio spectrum in the case of a mass spectrometer, the variation of nuclear resonant frequencies in an NMR spectrometer or the change in the absorption and emission of light with wavelength in an optical spectrometer.įigure 1: The three most common types of spectrometers found in research labs around the world. In the broadest sense a spectrometer is any instrument that is used to measure the variation of a physical characteristic over a given range i.e.
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