Scanning Spectrophotometer (side view)
A light beam enters the spectrophotometer. The focal point of the beam is brought to the slit of the
spectrophotometer. The light
passing through the slit is reflected off of a collimating mirror and sent to
the diffraction grating. The
diffraction grating disperses the parallel beams of light into their component
wavelengths. Each different
wavelength comes off of the grating at a slightly different angle. So the image of the slit is spread out
by color similar to a rainbow.