Unlike ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy which measures absorbance, charge modulation spectroscopy measures the charge introduced optical transmission variation. In other words, it reveals the new features in optical transmission introduced by charges. In this setup, there are mainly four components: lamp, monochromator, photodetector and lock-in amplifier. Lamp and monochromator are used for generating and selecting the wavelength. The selected wavelength passes through the transistor, and the transmitted light is recorded by the Photodiode. When the signal to noise ratio is very low, the signal can be modulated and recovered with a Lock-in amplifier.
In the experiment, a direct current plus an alternating current bias are applied to the organic field-effect transistor. Charge carries accumulate at the interface between the dielectric and the semiconductor (usually a few nanometers). With the appearance of the accumulation charge, the intensity of the transmitted light changes. The variation of the light intensity () is then collected though the photodetector and lock-in amplifier. The charge modulation frequency is given to Lock-in amplifier as the reference.