ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the most fundamental concepts that are frequently needed when running and describing specific experiments. Experimental noise will arise from a dark current in detectors, stray light, or from part of the experimental setup. In real instruments, the smallest step sampling rate is determined by hardware, such as the grating, but it can be changed in the software to larger step size. The chapter also explores some basic ideas of recognizing peaks. The signal to noise ratio is typically increased by increasing the exposure time or summing multiple repeated runs of the same experiment. Peaks observed in spectra are made/measured by instruments in the real world. Before doing a fluorescence experiment, the first step should typically be a measurement of sample absorption/transmittance. This will let us know the spectral range where the sample absorbs and what is the optical density of the sample.
