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An overview of absorption of electromagnetic radiation.This example shows the general principle using visible light as a specific example. A white light source—emitting light of multiple wavelengths—is focused on a sample (the pairs of complementary colors are indicated by the yellow dotted lines).
Absorbance is defined as "the logarithm of the ratio of incident to transmitted radiant power through a sample (excluding the effects on cell walls)". [1] Alternatively, for samples which scatter light, absorbance may be defined as "the negative logarithm of one minus absorptance, as measured on a uniform sample". [2]
Absorption spectroscopy is spectroscopy that involves techniques that measure the absorption of electromagnetic radiation, as a function of frequency or wavelength, due to its interaction with a sample. The sample absorbs energy, i.e., photons, from the radiating field.
An IR spectrum can be visualized in a graph of infrared light absorbance (or transmittance) on the vertical axis vs. frequency, wavenumber or wavelength on the horizontal axis. Typical units of wavenumber used in IR spectra are reciprocal centimeters, with the symbol cm −1.
Transmittance of ruby in optical and near-IR spectra. Note the two broad blue and green absorption bands and one narrow absorption band on the wavelength of 694 nm, which is the wavelength of the ruby laser. In optical physics, transmittance of the surface of a material is its effectiveness in transmitting radiant energy.
Longer-wavelength radiation such as visible light is nonionizing; the photons do not have sufficient energy to ionize atoms. Throughout most of the electromagnetic spectrum, spectroscopy can be used to separate waves of different frequencies, so that the intensity of the radiation can be measured as a function of frequency or wavelength.
The composition of a mixture of N absorbing species can be found by measuring the absorbance at N wavelengths (the values of the molar absorption coefficient for each species at these wavelengths must also be known). The wavelengths chosen are usually the wavelengths of maximum absorption (absorbance maxima) for the individual species.
The absorption was attributed to a sequence of overtone and combination bands whose intensity decreases at each step, giving rise to an absolute minimum at 418 nm, at which wavelength the attenuation coefficient is about 0.0044 m −1, which is an attenuation length of about 227 meters. These values correspond to pure absorption without ...