Centuries Ago
The evolution of the spectrometer started in the 17th century by Isaac Newton. Newton carried out an experiment where he let a beam of light from the sun pass through a slit in some shutters made of wood. The beam of light then fell onto a prism. He then noticed that the white light after falling onto the prism appeared as a rainbow colored band on the wall. This means that the prism had bent each color to a different degree. After repeating the experiment, Newton concluded that white light was made up of different rays of color.
The Modernization of the Optical Spectrometer
It was in the early 19th century that the modern optical spectrometer was developed. This was done by Joseph von Fraunhofer who combined a prism, a diffraction slit, and a telescope to form the modern day spectrometer. His optical spectrometer increased the spectral resolution and could also be reproduced in a laboratory.
Later on, Robert Bunsen and Gustav Robert Kirchhoff discovered the use of a spectrometer for chemical analysis. They used this method to discover rubidium and cesium and to explain stellar spectrum.
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