ABSTRACT
Spectroscopy is a generic term that covers a diversity of analytical methods that are directed to quantitative chemical analysis as well as to investigations of molecular structure. One of the fortunate facts of nature is that the different kinds of transitions that atoms and molecules may undergo, e.g., electronic, vibrational, rotational, etc., that lead to emission or absorption of energy, are associated with different regions of the spectrum. That is, molecular vibrations, ionization, fluorescence, etc. are, in general, stimulated by different spectral energies. Structural as well as quantitative information may be derived from infrared absorption and magnetic resonance spectra, incidentally, because of the influence molecular structure has on vibrational and rotational modes in molecules and on the energies required to effect electonic or protonic magnetic transitions. Measurements of absorption spectra generally require radiation sources that emit continuous bands of energy, i.e., emissions containing some fraction of all possible wave lengths within the working range selected.
