An emission spectrometer and method of operation

摘要

A method of calibrating an emission spectrometer (10) having a detector (11) capable of detecting spectral components of incident radiation, and a measurement optical path (28) which directs an energy beam (26) to a sample (20) and radiation emitted by the sample when irradiated by the energy beam to the radiation detector (11). The method comprises directing radiation of known spectral characteristic along an alternate path to the detector (11). The detector (11) to detects spectral characteristics of the radiation and makes a comparison with the known spectral characteristics. Drift data is determined on a basis of any variation between the detected and known spectral characteristics. The drift data is stored and subsequently used to adjust detected spectral characteristics of a sample in the measurement optical path (28) produce a drift calibrated output spectral analysis of the sample.