Optics

Introduction

Successfully applying spectroscopy to scientific problems requires a basic understanding of the components that are available to produce and control electromagnetic radiation. This outline leads to documents that discuss basic optics, light and excitation sources, wavelength separators, and light detectors. A separate document on optical materials gives practical guidelines for choosing optics for different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Basic Optics

• mirrors
• prisms
• lenses
• polarizers

Radiation sources for absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy

• Blackbody
• Discharge and arc lamps
• Hollow-cathode lamp
• Lasers

Wavelength separators

• Filters
• Monochromators
• Interferometers

Radiation detectors

• Overview
• Photomultiplier tube
• Semiconductors (photodiodes and photovoltaics)
• Photodiode array
• Charge-coupled detector array