Choosing a Fiber Optic Overview When configuring a spectrometer for a given experiment, one of the commonly overlooked considerations is in choosing the best fiber optic cable. Although there are many different factors...

Spectral Resolution Introduction One of the most important characteristics of a spectrometer is the spectral (or optical) resolution. The spectral resolution of a system determines the maximum number of spectral peaks...

The Optical Bench Overview As stated in Part 1: The Slit, a spectrometer is an imaging system which maps a plurality of monochromatic images of the entrance slit onto the detector plane. In the past 3 sections, we...

The Detector Overview In Part 3a, we discussed several different types of detectors and the role they play in miniature spectrometers. No discussion of detectors would be complete without covering noise sources and how...

The Detector Overview In the previous sections, we discussed the importance of the entrance slit and the diffraction grating in forming a spectral image of the incident light in the image plane. In traditional...

Diffraction Grating Overview The diffraction grating of a spectrometer determines the wavelength range and partially determines the optical resolution that the spectrometer will achieve. Choosing the correct grating is...

There are three primary components to any Raman spectrometer: an excitation source, a sampling apparatus, and a detector. While these three components have come in varying forms over the years, modern Raman...

The Slit Overview A spectrometer is an imaging system which maps a plurality of monochromatic images of the entrance slit onto the detector plane. This slit is critical to the spectrometer’s performance and determines...

When considering Raman scattering, we can think about the physics in one of two ways: the classical wave interpretation or the quantum particle interpretation. In the classical wave interpretation, light is considered...