Origin and Classification of Atomic Spectroscopic Methods:

As a chemist you would have performed a flame test for the identification of a few components especially the alkali and alkaline earth metals within their salts. You would have observed a beautiful color imparted through the elements to the flame. A color is a consequence of the emission of radiation through the gaseous atoms / ions within the excited state. The emitted radiation could be analysed within terms of the wavelength and the intensity and could be used for the identification and quantification of the element. That forms the primary of atomic emission or flame emission spectroscopy-one of the kinds of atomic spectroscopy.

Atomic spectroscopy is the oldest instrumental technique of elemental analysis. The origin of these methods dates back to the times of Bunsen and Kirchhoff within the mid 19th Century whereas they showed in which the optical radiation emitted from flames is features of the elements present in the flame gases or the ones introduced within the burning flame through different means. It was also elaborates during the similar time in which the intensities of the radiation, present in the spectra, characteristic of different elements, were dependent on the amount of elemental species present. Therefore, the potential of atomic spectroscopy both as qualitative as well as quantitative analysis was build.  It was also displays in which the wavelength emitted through a given component in the analyte was absorbed through cold vapours (atoms in their ground state) of the similar element.

In additional developments facilitated through the developments in the area of instrumentation led to the widespread application of atomic spectroscopy. Presently, atomic spectroscopic methods or atomic spectrometry is indispensable tools within the hands of analytical chemists. Let us know the origin of atomic spectroscopy in terms of the transitions amongst various atomic energy stages.