Spectroscopy

By shr1

  • Sir Isaac Newton

    Showed that what light can be dispersed into a continuous range of colours.
    He introduced the word 'spectrum' to describe the phenomenon.
    To observe this phenomenon, he used a device that consisted of:
    - a small aperture to let a beam of light through
    - a lens to collimate that light
    - a glass prism to disperse it
    - a screen to display the resulting spectrum

  • W.H. Wollaston

    Improved Newton's 'crude' spectrometer by including a
    lens that captured sunlight as a spectrum.
    He qualitatively observed the 'gaps' or
    the missing sections of colour.

  • Joseph Fraunhofer

    Fraunhofer quantitatively analysed spectra from the sun,
    when sufficiently dispersed, had large number of fine dark lines-
    now known as Fraunhofer lines. This was the first time that spectral lines were observed and analysed quantitatively. He also studied spectra of stars and planets.

  • Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchoff

    Invented the modern spectroscope.
    Found elements had their own unique spectra.
    Laid the foundations for stellar spectroscopy.

  • Anders Jonas Ångström

    Published a study on the wavelengths of solar spectral lines.
    He expressed these in units of 10^-10 m. This new unit known as 'angstrom (Å)'.
    Considered to be one of the fathers of modern spectroscopy

  • Pierre Janssen and Joseph Norman Lockyer

    Discovered the element Helium (from the Greek word 'Helios') when analysing solar spectra. Its presence was not detected on Earth previously.

  • Anders Jonas Ångström

    Produced first diffraction grating

  • Edward Festing and Sir William Abney

    Measured infrared spectra using photographic plates
    Correctly predicted that absorption patterns were related to chemical composition of sample

  • Henry A. Rowland

    Improved gratings by making curved diffraction grating at John Hopkins University.
    Gratings from his lab became the worldwide standard.

  • Johann J. Balmer

    Shows that visible spectral wavelengths of hydrogen can be represented by a mathematical formula.
    The lines are known as the Balmer series of hydrogen.

  • Johannes Rydberg

    Generalises Balmer series
    Introduces Rydberg's constant to describe the visible wavelengths of hydrogen

  • Arthur Schuster and Gustave Adolphe Hemsalech

    First started work on time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy.
    This involves moving photographic film into the focal plane of
    spectrograph.

  • J.J. Thomson

    Created first mass spectrometer (previously known as parabola spectrograph)

  • Henry Moseley

    Father of X-ray spectrometry
    Moseley's Law: showed how the unique X-ray spectra of atoms and how it depended on thee atomic number of element

  • Adam Hilger Ltd.

    Produced first evacuated spectrograph for identifying sulfur
    and phosphorus in steel.

  • Werner Heisenberg

    Develops the Heinsenberg uncertainty principle that
    explains the broadness of spectral lines

  • C. V. Raman and K.S. Krishnan

    Developed an analytical technique where scattered light is obtained to determine the vibrational energy patterns of a given sample

  • Maurice Hasler

    Producer of first commercial grating spectrograph

  • Alan Walsh

    Developed atomic absorption spectroscopy

  • First commercially available spectrometer with charge injection device (CID) solid-state detector

  • Digitally controlled waveform source for arc/spark spectrometry