A third class of devices for dispersing spectra are known as interferometers. These instruments divide the light with semitransparent surfaces, producing two or more beams that travel different paths and then recombine. In spectroscopy, the principal interferometers are those developed by the American physicist A.A. Michelson (1881) in an attempt to find the luminiferous ether—a hypothetical medium thought at that time to pervade all space—and by two French physicists, Charles Fabry and Alfred Pérot (1896), specifically for high-resolution spectroscopy.
In the Michelson interferometer, an incident beam of light strikes a tilted semitransparent mirror and divides the light into a reflected and transmitted wave. These waves continue to their respective mirrors, are reflected, and return to the semitransparent mirror. If the total number of oscillations of the two waves during their separate paths add up to be an integral number just after recombining on the partially reflecting surface of the beam splitter, the light from the two beams will add constructively and be directed toward a detector. This device then acts as a filter that transmits preferentially certain wavelengths and reflects others back to the light source, resulting in a visible interference pattern. A common use of the Michelson interferometer has one mirror mounted upon a carriage so that length of the light path in that branch can be varied. A spectrum is obtained by recording photoelectrically the light intensity of the interference pattern as the carriage is moved when an absorption cell is placed in one of the arms of the interferometer. The resulting signals contain information about many wavelengths simultaneously. A mathematical operation, called a Fourier transform, converts the recorded modulation in the light intensity at the detector into the usual frequency domain of the absorption spectrum (see analysis: Fourier analysis). The principal advantage of this method is that the entire spectrum is recorded simultaneously with one detector.
The Fabry-Pérot interferometer consists of two reflecting mirrors that can be either curved or flat. Only certain wavelengths of light will resonate in the cavity: the light is in resonance with the interferometer if m(λ/2) = L, where L is the distance between the two mirrors, m is an integer, and λ is the wavelength of the light inside the cavity. When this condition is fulfilled, light at these specific wavelengths will build up inside the cavity and be transmitted out the back end for specific wavelengths. By adjusting the spacing between the two mirrors, the instrument can be scanned over the spectral range of interest.
Optical detectors
The principal detection methods used in optical spectroscopy are photographic (e.g., film), photoemissive (photomultipliers), and photoconductive (semiconductor). Prior to about 1940, most spectra were recorded with photographic plates or film, in which the film is placed at the image point of a grating or prism spectrometer. An advantage of this technique is that the entire spectrum of interest can be obtained simultaneously, and low-intensity spectra can be easily taken with sensitive film.
Photoemissive detectors have replaced photographic plates in most applications. When a photon with sufficient energy strikes a surface, it can cause the ejection of an electron from the surface into a vacuum. A photoemissive diode consists of a surface (photocathode) appropriately treated to permit the ejection of electrons by low-energy photons and a separate electrode (the anode) on which electrons are collected, both sealed within an evacuated glass envelope. A photomultiplier tube has a cathode, a series of electrodes (dynodes), and an anode sealed within a common evacuated envelope. Appropriate voltages applied to the cathode, dynodes, and anode cause electrons ejected from the cathode to collide with the dynodes in succession. Each electron collision produces several more electrons; after a dozen or more dynodes, a single electron ejected by one photon can be converted into a fast pulse (with a duration of less than 10−8 second) of as many as 107 electrons at the anode. In this way, individual photons can be counted with good time resolution.
Other photodetectors include imaging tubes (e.g., television cameras), which can measure a spatial variation of the light across the surface of the photocathode, and microchannel plates, which combine the spatial resolution of an imaging tube with the light sensitivity of a photomultiplier. A night vision device consists of a microchannel plate multiplier in which the electrons at the output are directed onto a phosphor screen and can then be read out with an imaging tube.
Solid-state detectors such as semiconductor photodiodes detect light by causing photons to excite electrons from immobile, bound states of the semiconductor (the valence band) to a state where the electrons are mobile (the conduction band). The mobile electrons in the conduction band and the vacancies, or “holes,” in the valence band can be moved through the solid with externally applied electric fields, collected onto a metal electrode, and sensed as a photoinduced current. Microfabrication techniques developed for the integrated-circuit semiconductor industry are used to construct large arrays of individual photodiodes closely spaced together. The device, called a charge-coupled device (CCD), permits the charges that are collected by the individual diodes to be read out separately and displayed as an image.