Experimental Physics II: Experiment 4, Spectrometry Using

Grating Spectrometer
Taatsiannguaq Alex R K Berthelsen and Johanne Bojsen Kjær
October 25, 2025

Experimental Physics II: Experiment 4, Spectrometry Using Grating Spectrometer

1 Introduction

The purpose of this experiment is to learn the basics

of emission and absorption spectroscopy using a grat-
ing spectrometer. The report include results from 4
experiments.
The aim in the first experiment is to find the emis-
sion line spectra of various gaseous elements. This is
done by my measuring measuring 3 different spectral
lambs using the Ocean optics spectrum.
The aim in the second experiment is to estimate the Figure 1: Illustration of an incoming monochromatic
temperature of the sun and identify some of the atoms wave of light(Black arrows) hitting the periodic struc-
in the sun’s atmosphere. ture at angle θi with respect to the normal of the
The aim of the third experiment is to study the emis- structure, and leads to a constructive interference to
sion spectra of two different HeNa lasers and investi- the outgoing wave(Blue arrows), at an angle θm
gate the difference between a laser and a diode laser.
The aim of the fourth experiment is to investigate the
absorption spectroscopy of atomic ions in solution.

Figure 1 shows that, for a plane wave, at any angle

θi , constructive interference is bound to happen at an
angle of θm which is defined by the grating equation
1

2 Theory
d(sinθi ) − sinθm ) = mλ (1)

2.1 Grating Spectrometer

for m = 0, ±1, ±2, ... So for a certain choice of d, a
device can be constructed, seen in Figure 2, that only
The Grating spectrometer works by using the angular detects the diffracted waves with m = 1, in the form
dependence on the constructive interference of plane of a so-called CCD array, that allows the measuring
light-waves of a certain wavelength λ, which appears for the intensity of light along the direction of the
when the light hits a periodic structure that has a CCD span area(Double arrow). The measured light
spacing d. is then determined as a function of wavelength.

1
 2.3 Emission spectrum
When photons hit chemical compounds, they are ab-
sorbed by the electrons, which excites the electrons.
Electrons then releases the photons at a different fre-
quency, causing the different frequencies of photons,
where the emitted photon’s frequency would always
be a character trait for the said chemical compound.
Depending on which source, the light comes from, it
Figure 2: Light enters the spectrometer through the gives off certain traits, that tells us what kind of el-
entrance slit, and hits a curved mirror, where the ements are used to emit these lights. on the other
light gets collimated, to form a plan wave, that hits hand, When observing the emission spectrum of the
the diffraction grating. The light then continues to a sun, absorption lines are present, also called Fraun-
plane mirror, where it is directed to the CCD array, hofer lines, which tells us, what elements lie in the
for wavelength analysis. atmosphere of our sun.

2.3.1 Fraunhofer lines

2.2 Hydrogen spectrum
The light, emitting from the photosphere of the sun,
From the courses Quantum mechanics and Atom- and are often absorbed by the different chemical com-
Molecule Physics we know that the energy level of pounds in the sun’s atmosphere. These absorbed
the electron in a Hydrogen atom depends on which light, or absorption lines, leaves dips in the emission
excited state the electron is in. When the electron spectra, that gives us information about which ele-
transits from a higher excited state to a lower state, ments are on the sun’s atmosphere. An illustration
the electron will emit a photon of a given wavelength is shown on Figure 4, with various absorption line
corresponding to the difference in energy of the two elements shown.
states. The wavelength is given by:

hc
λ= . (2)
∆E

For the hydrogen atoms the transitions emits the

wavelengths seen in figure 3

Figure 4: Fraunhofer lines, observed of the blue sky,

(Wikipedia, 2025a)

2.4 Simple laser physics

The laser used from the second and third ex-
periment, is characterized as He-Ne laser. One
would think that, the laser consists of Helium
Figure 3: Electron transitions and their resulting and Neon emission spectra. A simple observation
wavelengths for hydrogen. Energy levels are not to of Helium and Neon emissions, can determine if
scale. From Wikipedia, 2025b the He-Ne laser, has traits of He emissions and
Ne emissions. It is mentioned in (P. W. Mer-
rill and Team, 2024), that Helium emissions lie
In figure 3 we see that only the transitions in the in the spectrum at {388.8nm, 501.5nm, 587.5nm},
Balmer series (from excited states higher that 2, to while Neon emission spectrum, that are men-
the 2nd excited state) emits light in the visual spec- tioned in (Meggers et al., 2024), lie in
trum. {614.3nm, 640.2248nm, 650.6nm, 703.24128nm}

2
2.5 Absorption spectrum 3.2 Equipment
Photons that are emitted, have different frequencies. 1. Oceanview Grating spectrometer
The different frequencies, causes them to have dif- 2. Optic fiber
ferent amounts of energies. When photons, stum-
ble upon molecules, that have just the right amount 3. Spectral tube holder and power supply
of distance, the photons can be absorbed by the
4. Stand for the optic fiber
molecules. The photons emitted from the source, if
observed, would have a proper curve, with little to no 5. He-Ne laser with wavelength 633nm
outliers. But since a lot of the photons are absorbed,
the curve would then become uneven at certain wave- 6. Diode laser
lengths, dips on the graph, depending on which com- 7. Collimating slits
position of chemicals or substances the photons have
traveled through. For this experiment, when the pho- 8. Polarizer
tons go through the chemicals, the photons that have 9. Lamp module for OceanView spectrometer
the energies, corresponding to the energy gaps be-
tween these molecules are absorbed, causing dips in 10. Lens for Lamp module adaptation
the supposed detected light. The role of the cali- 11. Various Gaseous elements
bration lies in, calculating the intensities of the ab-
sorption. The calibration data, and the measurement (a) H2
data, are meant to be plotted together, to determine, (b) N e
at which wavelengths, the measured data dips the (c) He
most. Once we figure that out, we can find which
elements, the chemicals are composed of, by look- 12. Various chemical elements
ing at the absorption spectra, at those wavelengths.
(a) CoSO4
Another use of the measured wavelength is, determi-
nation of the absorbance, using the wavelength. The (b) CuSO4
absorbance is given by: (c) N iSO4
  (d) H2 O
Iin (λ)
A(λ) = log10 (3)
Iout (λ) 3.3 General setup
Where Iin is the intensity of the reference data, at 3.3.1 First part: Gaseous elements, and solar
wavelength λ, and Iout is the intensity of the mea- spectra
sured chemical data, at wavelength λ

3 Materials and methods

3.1 Measurement plan
• First lab session we got to know the equipment
and downloaded the software. Then we took
measurement outside (to measure the the emis-
sion spectrum of the sun) and the we measured
the emission spectrum of H2 , N e and N e.
Figure 5: The setup of the experiment where we mea-
• Second lab session we took measurements of the sure the emission spectra. In this setup we measure
emission spectrum of the Helium Neon laser the spectrum of H2 , for other gaseous elements we
used in exercise 2 and 3. After that we took change the light in the spectral lamb.
measurements of the emission spectrum of the
diode laser used in experiment 1. The first part, focuses on the spectral emissions of
different gaseous elements. These gaseous elements,
• Third lab session we took measurements of ab- are within tubes, that can be powered up. The Spec-
sorbance off atomic ions in solution. tral tube holder, called the spectral lamb, is placed

3
in front of the stand with the optic fiber. The Spec-
tral lamb are turned on, once the gaseous element are
powered up, they start emitting light, which then is
observed with the grating spectrometer, through the
optic fiber. It is illustrated in Figure 5.
There is a limit to how much the grating spectrom-
eter can detect, so for too intense light sources, the
data peaks, and is no longer valuable. Therefor the
optical fiber is placed at different distance from each
Figure 7: Setup of experiment measuring the emis-
gaseous element.
sion specra of the HeNa laser from experiment 2 and
3
3.3.2 Second part: solar spectra

Then we measured the emission spectra of the

HeNe diode laser from experiment 1. The diode laser
used in the first experiment, can emit two differ-
Figure 6: Optical fiber used in experiment 2, outside ent kinds of emission. The light emitting diode, is
present, at low input voltage, and it starts lasing at
higher voltage. For high voltage, the diode laser emits
The second part is about the emission spectrum of
too much intensity, so we include a collimating slit,
the sun. To measure this we used the optical fiber in
and set it to the second most narrow slit, and further
figure 6 outside. As stated in the section above the
put out a polarizer, to halve our intensity. See this
Ocean Optic Spectrometer has a limit on how intense
setup in figure 8.
light it can measure.
For that exact reason, when observing the solar spec-
tra, we do not point it at the sun, but rather surfaces
that are hit by the sunlight. That way, the collected
data, does not peak, and we still detect our sunlight
spectra.
The recieved data, can give us information of the
sun’s temperature, using Wien’s displacement
law. The equation says:
b
λpeak = (4)
T
where λpeak is the peak wavelength measured, b is
Wien’s displacement constant with a value of b ≈
2898µm K, and T is the absolute temperature.

3.3.3 Third part: Simple laser physics

First we measured the emission spectra of the HeNe
laser from experiment 2 and 3. To measure this He-
Ne laser, are pointed at the optic fiber, but slightly Figure 8: The setup for the diode laser observation,
off center, so that we get eligible data. See the setup with collimating slits set to the second thinnest slit,
in figure 7. and a polarizer at the end.

4
3.3.4 Fourth part: Absorption spectroscopy needs to be calibrated, before observing the given
chemicals.
After attaching the lens, and the additional compo-
nent, the absorption spectroscopy should be ready to
observe and detect light. The chemicals we deal with,
are all dissolved in water, so we use water as a calibra-
tion source. The calibration process works by, mea-
suring the absorption lines for water, and then mea-
suring the background noise the detector recieves. It
is sometimes required to reduce the integration time,
the program has set up. It reduces the intensity mea-
sured, so that our measurements are not saturated.

4 Results
Figure 9: Setup of experiment of absorption spec- In all plots the y-axis is measured in counts, these
troscopy counts represents the intensity of the light at a given
wavelength, because is describes how many times the
spectrometer detects a photon at the given wave-
length. Therefor the number of counts in the datasets
can’t be compared across the experiments and se-
tups, because we adjusted the distance from the light
source, such that we measured close to maximal num-
ber of counts without exceeding the limit in the soft-
ware.

4.1 Results from the measurements of

the gaseous elements
As mentioned in the theory different matters emits
and absorbs photons at different wavelengths. In this
Figure 10: Cuvettes containing different concentra- experiment we measured the spectrum of H2 , N e and
tions of the three salts. The cuvettes with R on, are He. These can be seen in figure 11, 12 and 13.
the cuvettes containing water for reference

For this part, an additional component is added for

the oceanview spectrometer: Lamp Module, for ab-
sorption spectroscopy, see setup in figure 9. The
adaptation lens, is screwed on and the lamp mod-
ule is then attached. A calibration is then processed,
and the absorption of different chemicals is analyzed.
The chemicals are dissolved in water and the con-
tainers are placed in the lamp module, see figure 9.
The cuvettes containing different concentrations of
the different chemicals can be seen in figure 10. The
Figure 11: The emission spectrum of H2 .
analysis determines the different kinds of concentra-
tions in those chemicals. In the program, there exists
a calculation, that can determines how much these In figure 11 we see two peaks, these peaks are the
chemicals absorb, and plots them as intensities. wavelengths of the emitted light that the Hydrogen
gaseous sends out. The most emitted light have the
wavelength 656.3 nm. From figure 3 we see that this
3.4 calibration
comes from the electron transitioning from the 3rd
The first two parts of the experiment, consist only of excited state to the 2nd excited state. By comparing
observing at certain lights. The third part however with the Fraunhofer lines in figure 4 this corresponds

5
to Fraunhofer line F with the element Hα . 4.2 Results from the solar spectrum
The other emitted light have the wavelengths 486.2
nm. From figure 3 we see that this is the transition
from 4th excited state to the 2nd excited state. By
comparing with the Fraunhofer lines in figure 4 this
corresponds to Fraunhofer line F with the element
Hβ .

Figure 14: Emission spectrum of light outdoor,

the dips are at the wavelenghts 430.7nm, 486.2nm,
589.6nm, 656.4nm, 686.9nm and 761.9nm

The emission spectrum we measured outside can be

seen in figure 14. The number of counts have been
Figure 12: The emission spectrum of Ne normalized.
In figure 14 we find that the most measured wave-
length, i.e. the wavelength with the highest intensity,
In figure 12 we see, that the Neon gaseous ele- is 511.70 nm. We use this and equation (4) to calcu-
ment emits light with several different wavelengths. late our estimate of the sun to be
The four most common emitted wavelengths are at
b 2898 · 10−6
614.4nm, 640.2nm, 650.6nm and 703.1 nm. T = = = 5663.5K.
By use of equation (2) this indicates that the four λpeak 511.70 · 10−9
most common transitions of electrons in the Neon The correct teperature of the surface of the sun is
atoms have the energy change of 2.018 eV, 1.937 eV, 5778K Wikipedia, 2025c, so our estimate is 2.0%
1.906 eV and 1.763 eV. lower than the correct value, which is acceptable. The
error is most likely because we pointed the optical
fiber to the ground and not the sun itself.
In figure 14 we also see ’dips’ in the data. These
dips is a result of atoms in the atmosphere of the
sun absorbing specific wavelengths. The greatest dips
are at the wavelengths 430.7nm, 486.2nm, 589.6nm,
656.4nm, 686.9nm and 761.9nm.
By comparing these values with the Frauenhoffer
lines from Wikipedia, 2025a we find that the atoms
which absorbs light are:
• Ca (Fraunhofer line G at 430.774 nm)
• Hβ (Fraunhofer line F at 486.134nm)
Figure 13: The emission spectrum of He
• Na (Fraunhofer line D1 at 589.592nm)
In figure 13 we find that the Helium gaseous el- • Hα (Fraunhofer line C at 656.281 nm)
ement emits light with fewer different wavelengths
than Neon but more that Hydrogen. The four • O2 (Fraunhofer line B at 686.719nm)
most common emitted wavelengths are at 389.2nm • O2 (Fraunhofer line A at 759.370nm)
501.8nm, 587.9nm and 667.9nm. The most detected
wavelength is 501.8nm. Again we can use equation The wavelengths after each atom is the table value
(2) and find that the energy shifts from the electrons wavelengths from Wikipedia, 2025a. Notice that the
transition from a higher excited state to a lower state first 5 values are almost on spot, the 6’th value (the
are 3.186 eV, 2.471 eV, 2.109 eV and 1.856 eV. dip corresponding to the Fraunhofer line A) is the

6
one furthest away from the table value. The mea-
sured value is 0.3% grater than the table value, so
still close.
Hence we conclude that some of the atoms in the at-
mosphere of the sun are Ca, Hβ , N a, Hα and O2 .

4.3 Results from simple laser physics

First we measured the emission spectrum of the HeNe Figure 16: The emission spectrum of the HeNe diode
laser from experiment 2 and 3, see figure 15. laser from experiment 1, with high and low intensity

As shown in figure 15 we measured the emission

spectrum when the intensity of the diode laser was
high and when the diode laser were low.
We see that the diode laser emits light with a broader
spectrum of wavelengths. This agrees with the the-
ory, because we know from Universitet, 2025, that
under a certain energy level (intensity) a diode will
emit light like a regular light emitting diode (LED),
which will have a broader emission spectrum than the
lasing mode.
In figure 15 we also see that for that when the inten-
sity of the diode laser is high, there is a high peak
at the wavelength 633nm. This is the same peak as
Figure 15: The emission spectrum of the HeNe lacer the one from the HeNa laser in figure 16. So we can
from experiment 2 and 3. The peak is at the wave- conclude, that the diode laser is a laser over a cer-
length 633.2nm. tain energy level (intensity). This also agrees with
the theory in Universitet, 2025.

On the laser it is stated, that the wavelength is 4.4 Results from Absorption spec-
633nm. As we see in 15 it is very clear that the laser troscopy
sends out light with one specific wavelength, because
In our experiment of absorption spectroscopy, we had
there is only one peak which is very high, meaning we
4 sets of three different chemicals with the concen-
only detect light at one wavelength. From the data
tration gradually increasing. The chemicals we were
processing we find that the wavelength of the emitted
given are three salts CoSO4 , N iSO4 and CuSO4 .
light is 633.2nm. Which is the same as stated on the
To determine the absorbance of the chemical sam-
laser.
ples, transmission spectra measured with a spectrom-
We notice that the wavelentgh of the emitted light
eter are used. The absorbance A(λ) at a given wave-
from the HeNe is not equal to one of the peaks in
length λ is calculated by comparing the intensity of
the emission spectrum of He nor Na. So the energy
the reference spectrum Iin (λ) with the intensity of
states, and by that also the transitions, of the elec-
the sample spectrum Iout (λ):
trons in the HeNa molecule are different than the
energy states of Helium and Neon. 
Iin (λ)

At the wavelengths 400nm to 550nm we also detected A(λ) = log10 (5)
Iout (λ)
a bit of light, this i probably do to some background
noise. Where:

• Iin (λ) is the intensity measured from the refer-

Then we measured the emission spectrum of the ence sample (REVI), which is assumed to trans-
diode laser from experiment 1, see figure 16. mit light without significant absorption,

7
 • Iout (λ) is the intensity measured from the
chemical sample, which may absorb light at spe-
cific wavelengths.

This equation is based on the Beer–Lambert law,

where the absorbance is defined as the logarithm
of the ratio between incoming and outgoing light
intensity. A higher absorbance at a specific wave-
length indicates that the substance absorbs light Figure 18: The concentration of the measured data,
more strongly at that wavelength. calculated using 5

Here it can be seen, the differences of the concen-

The results software setup are 140 ms integration tration, and at which wavelengths they lie in. How-
time. That basically determines, the intensity of the ever, when we look at the software’s own calculation
detected absorption. We have included a 45 ms inte- of the intensities, it can be seen in Figure 19, that
gration part, with the lens for the module adaptation, there is much more noise from the software, and our
to see the effect of it, and it will be discussed in the manual calculation has much less noise.
discussion section. We have also included the calcu-
lation for the absorption made by the software, to
compare between our calculation and the software.

Figure 19: Software calculation of the absorption in-

tensity, of the 140ms integration time data

These data, each colour represents each their own

chemical composition. Referencing to our attach-
Figure 17: Results of 140 ms integration time. The ments, we can compare the peaks of our data, and
three salts, are Red, Green and Blue, while magenta determine which peaks or curve lines lies in which
is the reference analysis. composition. These attachments, contains observa-
tion of which absorption lines belongs to which chemi-
cal compositions. By similarities, we have determined
the blue graph, to be CuSO4 , because of the peak at
800nm, where the incline started at 600nm and per-
sists to 900nm. We also found the green belongs to
Seen in Figure 17, at 400 nm, the green chemi- the N iSO4 , since it peaks at 400nm and has a val-
cal, absorps most of the light, at those wavelength, ley like peak at 600-800nm, which is consistent with
and the concentration of the salt, can be seen, as the the attached file for N iSO4 . And last but not least,
deepest are the most concentrated. Red one, is at 500 our data for red would belong to CoSO4 , that peaks
nm, while the blue one is at 700 nm. Now, using our around 500nm and is the only peak to arise. These
formulas, we can make a new plot, that shows which are consistent, with the attachments, whith little to
has the most concentration: no doubt that, they in fact are the given chemicals.

8
5 Discussion
5.1 Sources of error and uncertainties
There contains different sources of error in our ex-
periment. We have observed some of these sources of
error to be:

• The gaseous elements in the spectral lamp be-

come worn out over time

• Credibility of equipment (The optical fiber and Figure 21: Absorption software calculations, with
Ocean Optics spectrometer not detecting the the reference absorption data of the 45ms integra-
right intensities of each wavelength) tion time with scope data.

• Sometimes we did not detect the light source Here is another example of how, the software cal-
directly, because the counts in the software ex- culation, leaves a lot of noise in the data, while, our
ceeded the limit. calculated data, leaves much less noise.

• The calibration of the Ocean View software

made in the absorption experiment. We had 6 Conclusion
a lot of fluctuation.
We have estimated the temperature of the sun to be
• Background light 5663.5K, which is 2.0% from the table value. We also
found some of the Fraunhofer lines, whereby we con-
clude that some of the atoms in the suns atmosphere
are Calium, Hydrogen, Natrium, and Oxygen. The
Helium, Neon and Hydrogen emission spectrum, is
observed in a way, we can find their emission spec-
trum on the given website NIST
We have found that the emission spectrum af a diode
laser are broader than tha spectrum of a laser. We
also found how the HeNe laser, does not entirely carry
traits of the actual raw He and Ne emission lights.
In our Absorption spectrum part, we find that our
manual calculations are much smoother, and found
which these curves belong to which chemical compo-
sitions. The blue graphs, belong to CuSO4 as seen in
Figure 22, and the green is the N iSO4 seen in Figure
Figure 20: Comparison plot of the red chemicals, be-
24, and last but not least, the red belonging to the
tween 140 ms integration time without scope, and 45
CoSO4 , seen in Figure 23. As observed, the green
ms integration time with scope.
graphs, only have three curves, and that is because
we were only given three concentrations.
The comparison of these plots, can be concluded
that the grey/45 ms data have a curved reference
data, which the scope could be the reason behind References
it. Putting in the scope, can make the light recieved
curved, due to scattering of the light. It can also be Meggers, W. F. et al. (2024). NIST Atomic Spec-
seen in the next graph, how the reference data is ac- tra Database (ver. 5.12), [Online]. Available:
tually curved, and goes back to normal at 850 nm. [Link] [2025, May 5].
Either than that, the scope seems to be, raising the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
data, by 0.05-0.1 scale on the y axis. Gaithersburg, MD.

9
P. W. Merrill, W. C. Martin and NIST Wikipedia (2025a). Fraunhofer lines. Accessed: 2025-
ASD Team (2024). NIST Atomic Spectra 04-09. url: [Link]
Database (ver. 5.12), [Online]. Available: Fraunhofer_lines.
[Link] [2025, April — (2025b). Hydrogen spectral series. Accessed: 2025-
30]. National Institute of Standards and Tech- 13-05. url: [Link]
nology, Gaithersburg, MD. Hydrogen_spectral_series.
Universitet, Aarhus (2025). Exercise 4: Spectroscopy — (2025c). Wien’s displacement law. Accessed: 2025-
using grating spectrometer. Accessed: 2025-07-05. 04-09. url: [Link]
url: https : / / brightspace . au . dk / d2l / le / Wien%27s_displacement_law.
lessons/166358/topics/2284317.

A Absorption spectras of the salts

These are the graps we compared our data from the absorption experiment with. By comparison we can
determine which salt is which.

Figure 22: Emission spectrum of CuSO4 , from Universitet, 2025

Figure 23: Emission spectrum of CuSO4 , from Universitet, 2025

10
 Because the absorption spectrum of N iSO4 given in the guide were of the wrong salt, we googled the
right absorption spectras.

Figure 24: Absorption spectrum spectrum of N iSo4

11