Spectra of Gas Discharges

The following images are color coded spectra of various elements undergoing electrical discharge excitation.

The spectra for each element is computed and plotted in your browser by a Java program which reads a file containing a list of emission line wavelengths and their corresponding strengths.

This program generates deep 24 bit color plots, therefore you may need to increase the color depth of your system to view subtle details in these spectra.

Note : There may be a small delay as each Applet loads its element emission line file and computes the spectra...

Hydrogen

Your browser doesn't support Java.
Here is a lower quality jpeg of the spectra:

Helium

Oxygen

Carbon

Nitrogen

Neon

Magnesium

Silicon

Sulfur

Iron

Aluminum

Calcium

Argon

Sodium

The element, wavelength range and line width are all controlled by applet parameter tags in the HTML source for this page. There are other options such as width and height of spectra in pixels and contrast which can also be controlled. There is also an option to overlay a white blackbody continuum of varying strength.

For more details return to gas discharge simulation.