Atomic Spectra Paper - Alternate Assignment

Atomic Spectra Paper - Alternate Assignment

For the past few weeks, the class has been studying Chapter Five of our textbooks which consists of Electrons in Atoms. We broke down into small groups and we each created a "cell-phone spectrometer" in order for us to fully understand the information given by both the book and Mr. Beightol. The task of the project was to observe different tubes of gases and to identify them with the information given by the Emission Spectrum of each element. "Atomic emissions spectroscopy, or AES, is a method which chemically analyzes the particular wavelength of a sample element to identify and determine the abundance of this certain element" (Study Mode - http://www.studymode.com/essays/Flame-Tests-Atomic-Emission-And-Electron-Energy-1696826.html). The first things you see when looking through the spectrometer are a set of lines created from an excited atom that is passed through a prism. If you observe the spectrum without any background knowledge, all it seems like is a series of colored lines in the order of ROY G BIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet). But, with knowledge you can understand the depth of what the lines represent, and how they can be used in order to determine certain entities in science.

Emission spectroscopy is a technique that has been around for years and is a technique that can be used to determine many things. Not only can it determine certain things, but it has also led to many discoveries made by scientists that have helped us today. This technique examines the wavelengths of atoms or molecules through a transition from excitement or to a lower energy state. All of this is then observed with a spectrometer, but none of this could happen without light.

Light consists of electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths. A spectroscope is used to separate the components of light into a series of liens called the emission spectrum. The process of how this works is as follows: The tool uses a prism, or diffraction grating, to split the light into their frequencies which created the lines you see in an element's spectra. Think of the lines as a barcode. By simply looking at the set of lines, or code, it's easy to identify what the object is. And with that information, it's a way to understand where it comes from, how it's made, etc.

Scientists use emission spectra in order to confirm the presence of a certain element in materials of unknown composition. In order for scientists to do this, they know that each line in the spectrum correlates to a specific wavelength. It has been proven that each element gives of their own characteristic spectrum which differs from all the other elements. For example, Hydrogen and Helium's spectra will differ because they won't both have the same set of lines, just how not every product in the grocery store has the same barcode. Knowing this, scientists are able to find many different elements that compose various objects.

¬There are other ways of analyzing