SUNWAY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

AUSTRALIAN MATRICULATION
PHYSICS
UNIT 3B
PARTICLES, WAVES AND QUANTA

Week 21

Emission and Absorption Spectra

Spectroscopy

• Spectroscopy is the process used to analyse the components of a radiation.

• This process requires the use of a spectroscope.

• The crudest form of a spectroscope is shown above.

• The first lens concentrates all the light to the opaque barrier. The opaque barrier
functions to absorb all of the light except those that pass through the slit.
• The components of the light is split using the prism.
• The last lens focuses the separated light onto a screen or detector.

Emission Spectra

• If we took a glass jar containing pure hydrogen gas and passed an electrical
discharge through it, the gas would begin to glow, i.e. it would emit radiation. If we were
to examine that radiation with our spectroscope, we would find that its spectrum
consisted of only a few bright lines on an otherwise dark background.

• The light produced by the hydrogen in this experiment does not consist of all
possible colors but instead includes only a few narrow, well-defined emission lines,

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AUSTRALIAN MATRICULATION
PHYSICS
UNIT 3B
narrow “slices” of the continuous spectrum. The black background represents all
the wavelengths not emitted by hydrogen.
• After some experimentation, we would also find that although we could alter
the intensity of the lines (for example, by changing the amount of hydrogen in the
jar or the strength of the electrical discharge), we could not alter their color (in
other words, their frequency or wavelength).
• This particular pattern of spectral emission lines is a property of the element
hydrogen.
• Other elements yield different emission spectra.
• Depending on which element is involved, the pattern of lines can be fairly simple
or very complex. Always, though, it is unique to that element. The emission spectrum of
a gas thus provides a “fingerprint” that allows scientists to deduce its presence by
spectroscopic means.
• Examples of the emission spectra of some common substances are shown below:

Absorption Spectra

• When sunlight is split by a prism, at first glance it appears to produce a

continuous spectrum. However, closer scrutiny shows that the solar spectrum is
interrupted by a large number of narrow dark lines, as shown below:

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AUSTRALIAN MATRICULATION
PHYSICS
UNIT 3B

• These dark lines represent wavelengths of light that have been removed
(absorbed) by gases present either in the outer layers of the Sun or in Earth’s
atmosphere. These gaps in the spectrum are called absorption lines. The absorption
lines in the solar spectrum are referred to collectively as Fraunhofer lines.
• Scientists found that absorption lines could also be produced in the laboratory by
passing a beam of light from a continuous source through a cool gas, as shown below:

• The absorption lines associated with a given gas occur at precisely the same
wavelengths as the emission lines produced when the gas is heated. Both sets of lines
therefore contain the same information about the composition of the gas.