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Longer-wavelength radiation such as visible light is nonionizing; the photons do not have sufficient energy to ionize atoms. Throughout most of the electromagnetic spectrum, spectroscopy can be used to separate waves of different frequencies, so that the intensity of the radiation can be measured as a function of frequency or wavelength ...
White light is dispersed by a glass prism into the colors of the visible spectrum. The visible spectrum is the band of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called visible light (or simply light).
Mathematically, for the spectral power distribution of a radiant exitance or irradiance one may write: =where M(λ) is the spectral irradiance (or exitance) of the light (SI units: W/m 2 = kg·m −1 ·s −3); Φ is the radiant flux of the source (SI unit: watt, W); A is the area over which the radiant flux is integrated (SI unit: square meter, m 2); and λ is the wavelength (SI unit: meter, m).
The frequency of light used in the definition corresponds to a wavelength in a vacuum of 555 nm, which is near the peak of the eye's response to light. If the 1 candela source emitted uniformly in all directions, the total radiant flux would be about 18.40 mW , since there are 4 π steradians in a sphere.
Frequency is inversely proportional to wavelength, according to the equation: [26] = where v is the speed of the wave (c in a vacuum or less in other media), f is the frequency and λ is the wavelength. As waves cross boundaries between different media, their speeds change but their frequencies remain constant.
The relative spectral flux density is also useful if we wish to compare a source's flux density at one wavelength with the same source's flux density at another wavelength; for example, if we wish to demonstrate how the Sun's spectrum peaks in the visible part of the EM spectrum, a graph of the Sun's relative spectral flux density will suffice.
For example, a wavenumber in inverse centimeters can be converted to a frequency expressed in the unit gigahertz by multiplying by 29.979 2458 cm/ns (the speed of light, in centimeters per nanosecond); [5] conversely, an electromagnetic wave at 29.9792458 GHz has a wavelength of 1 cm in free space.
A white light source—emitting light of multiple wavelengths—is focused on a sample (the pairs of complementary colors are indicated by the yellow dotted lines). Upon striking the sample, photons that match the energy gap of the molecules present (green light in this example) are absorbed, exciting the molecules. Other photons are scattered ...