General Information on Atomic Spectroscopy

Abstract

Just like molecular spectroscopy (the basics of which you learned about in Part IV), atomic spectroscopy is also based on excitation of the analyte (using various methods, which we will look at in turn). Starting from this, we can then obtain information on the nature and/or quantity of the analyte present. In the former case, we are dealing with absorption spectroscopic methods, which will be discussed in ► Chap. 21. The principle behind this is the same as for IR spectroscopy from Part IV:If, on the other hand, we obtain our information by observing what wavelength is emitted by an analyte that returns to the ground state (or at least to a somewhat less excited state—this is generally referred to as relaxation), we perform emission spectroscopy, which we look at in ► Chap. 22. And just as atomic absorption spectroscopy resembles IR spectroscopy in a certain way, atomic emission spectroscopy has at least a certain resemblance to Raman spectroscopy from Part IV: Here, too, we are dependent on first obtaining a sufficiently large number of analytes (in this case not molecules but atoms) that are actually present in the excited state.