In: Chemistry
What are the physical characteristics of a grating monochromator responsible for determining the spectral resolution?
A monochromator allows only light of single wavelength by removing unwanted wavelength from the source beam light. It is composed of two slits for entry and exit and diffraction element which may be a prism or diffraction grating.
Light containing different wavelengths broken down in their respective wavelengths when entering through a monochromator. Breaking down of light into its constituent wavelength is done with the help of prism. Similarly, a diffraction grating can be used to change the color of light extracted through slit by the means of rotation.
A monochromator is comprising of the dispersive element, entrance slit and mirror to obtain parallel beam similar to sunlight and an exit slit and mirror to extracted out the monochromatic light.