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Absorption spectroscopy is performed across the electromagnetic spectrum. Absorption spectroscopy is employed as an analytical chemistry tool to determine the presence of a particular substance in a sample and, in many cases, to quantify the amount of the substance present.
Radiative transitions involve either the absorption or emission of a photon. As mentioned above, these transitions are denoted with solid arrows with their tails at the initial energy level and their tips at the final energy level. Nonradiative transitions arise through several different mechanisms, all differently labeled in the diagram.
The emission spectrum characteristics of some elements are plainly visible to the naked eye when these elements are heated. For example, when platinum wire is dipped into a sodium nitrate solution and then inserted into a flame, the sodium atoms emit an amber yellow color. Similarly, when indium is inserted into a flame, the flame becomes blue.
Alternatively, one source may be used to vaporize a sample while another is used to atomize (and possibly ionize). An example of this is laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry, where a laser is used to vaporize a solid sample and an inductively-coupled plasma is used to atomize the vapor.
The classical example of a discrete spectrum (for which the term was first used) is the characteristic set of discrete spectral lines seen in the emission spectrum and absorption spectrum of isolated atoms of a chemical element, which only absorb and emit light at particular wavelengths. The technique of spectroscopy is based on this phenomenon.
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).
Total absorption is measured with normal lamp current, i.e., with a narrow emission line, and background absorption after application of a high-current pulse with the profile of the self-reversed line, which has little emission at the original wavelength, but strong emission on both sides of the analytical line.
In spectroscopy, an absorption band is a range of wavelengths, frequencies or energies in the electromagnetic spectrum that are characteristic of a particular transition from initial to final state in a substance. According to quantum mechanics, atoms and molecules can only hold certain defined quantities of energy, or exist in specific states. [1]