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Monochromatic radiation can be produced by a number of methods. Isaac Newton observed that a beam of light from the sun could be spread out by refraction into a fan of light with varying colors; and that if a beam of any particular color was isolated from that fan, it behaved as "pure" light that could not be decomposed further.
While no source of electromagnetic radiation is purely monochromatic, in practice, it is usually used to describe very narrowband sources such as monochromated or laser light. The degree of monochromaticity can be defined by the spectral linewidth). A device which isolates a narrow band of light from a broadband source is called a monochromator.
A source, like the sun, which is very far away, provides collimated light. Newton used sunlight in his famous experiments. In a practical monochromator, however, the light source is close by, and an optical system in the monochromator converts the diverging light of the source to collimated light.
Light also has a polarization, which is the direction in which the electric or magnetic field oscillates. Unpolarized light is composed of incoherent light waves with random polarization angles. The electric field of the unpolarized light wanders in every direction and changes in phase over the coherence time of the two light waves.
By definition, if one constructs a light source that emits monochromatic green light with a frequency of 540 THz, and that has a radiant intensity of 1/683 watts per steradian in a given direction, that light source will emit one candela in the specified direction. [3]
The classical setup to observe the photoelectric effect includes a light source, a set of filters to monochromatize the light, a vacuum tube transparent to ultraviolet light, an emitting electrode (E) exposed to the light, and a collector (C) whose voltage V C can be externally controlled. [citation needed]
A rainbow is a decomposition of white light into all of the spectral colors. Laser beams are monochromatic light, thereby exhibiting spectral colors. A spectral color is a color that is evoked by monochromatic light, i.e. either a spectral line with a single wavelength or frequency of light in the visible spectrum, or a relatively narrow spectral band (e.g. lasers).
The spectral flux density or monochromatic flux, S, of a source is the integral of the spectral radiance, B, over the source solid angle: = (,). The unit is named after pioneering US radio astronomer Karl Guthe Jansky and is defined as