Device for detecting and analyzing wavelength s of electromagnetic radiation , commonly used for molecular spectroscopy ; more broadly, any of various instruments in which an emission (as of electromagnetic radiation or particles) is spread out according to some property (as energy or mass ) into a spectrum and measurements are made at points or regions along the spectrum.
As used in traditional laboratory analysis , a spectrometer includes a radiation source and detection and analysis equipment. Emission spectrometers excite molecule s of a sample to higher energy states and analyze the radiation emitted when they decay to the original energy state. Absorption spectrometers pass radiation of known wavelength through a sample, varying the wavelengths to produce a spectrum of results; the detector system reveals to what extent each wavelength is absorbed. mass spectrometry ) spread out the atomic or molecular components in a sample according to their masses and then detect the sorted components.