Written by Steven Chu
Last Updated


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Alternate title: spectral analysis
Written by Steven Chu
Last Updated
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Historically glass prisms were first used to break up or disperse light into its component colours. The path of a light ray bends (refracts) when it passes from one transparent medium to another—e.g., from air to glass. Different colours (wavelengths) of light are bent through different angles; hence a ray leaves a prism in a direction depending on its colour (see Figure 3). The degree to which a ray bends at each interface can be calculated from Snell’s law, which states that if n1 and n2 are the refractive indices of the medium outside the prism and of the prism itself, respectively, and the angles i and r are the angles that the ray of a given wavelength makes with a line at right angles to the prism face as shown in Figure 3, then the equation n1 sin i = n2 sin r is obtained for all rays. The refractive index of a medium, indicated by the symbol n, is defined as the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to the speed of light in the medium. Typical values for n range from 1.0003 for air at 0° C and atmospheric pressure, to 1.5–1.6 for typical glasses, to 4 for germanium in the infrared portion of the spectrum.

Since the index of refraction of optical glasses varies by only a few percent across the visible spectrum, different wavelengths are separated by small angles. Thus, prism instruments are generally used only when low spectral resolution is sufficient.


At points along a given wavefront (crest of the wave), the advancing light wave can be thought of as being generated by a set of spherical radiators, as shown in Figure 4A, according to a principle first enunciated by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens and later made quantitative by Fraunhofer. The new wavefront is defined by the line that is tangent to all the wavelets (secondary waves) emitting from the previous wavefront. If the emitting regions are in a plane of infinite extent, the light will propagate along a straight line normal to the plane of the wavefronts. However, if the region of the emitters is bounded or restricted in some other way, the light will spread out by a phenomenon called diffraction.

Diffraction gratings are composed of closely spaced transmitting slits on a flat surface (transmission gratings) or alternate reflecting grooves on a flat or curved surface (reflection gratings).

If collimated light falls upon a transmission grating, the wavefronts successively pass through and spread out as secondary waves from the transparent parts of the grating. Most of these secondary waves, when they meet along a common path, interfere with each other destructively, so that light does not leave the grating at all angles. At some exit angles, however, secondary waves from adjacent slits of the grating are delayed by exactly one wavelength, and these waves reinforce each other when they meet—i.e., the crests of one fall on top of the other. In this case, constructive interference takes place, and light is emitted in directions where the spacing between the adjacent radiators is delayed by one wavelength (see Figure 4B). Constructive interference also occurs for delays of integral numbers of wavelengths. The light diffracts according to the formula mλ = d(sin i − sin r), where i is the incident angle, r is the reflected or transmitted angle, d is the spacing between grating slits, λ is the wavelength of the light, and m is an integer (usually called the order of interference). If light having several constituent wavelengths falls upon a grating at a fixed angle i, different wavelengths are diffracted in slightly different directions and can be observed and recorded separately. Each wavelength is also diffracted into several orders (or groupings); gratings are usually blazed (engraved) so that a particular order will be the most intense. A lens or concave mirror can then be used to produce images of the spectral lines.

As the grating in a spectrometer is rotated about an axis parallel to the slit axis, the spectral lines are transmitted successively through the instrument. An electronic photodetector placed behind the slit can then be used to measure the amount of light in each part of the spectrum. The advantage of such an arrangement is that photodetectors are extremely sensitive, have a fast time response, and respond linearly to the energy of the light over a wide range of light intensities (see below Optical detectors).

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