Education – Research

GoSpectro for the education

The GoSpectro is an ultra-compact device that turns any smartphone or tablet equipped with a camera into a light spectrometer. It allows to acquire, record and exploit a spectrum of light. By “looking” at a light source or object through the GoSpectro, you can see on the screen the spectrum of light emitted, transmitted or reflected by the object. All these features make it an ideal tool for high school education as illustrated by the experiences below.

Education case #1: Monochromatic and polychromatic lights

Required material: Several types of light sources such as lasers, sodium lamps, fluocompact lamps, LED lamps or incandescent lamps.
The purpose of this experiment is to measure spectra from different light sources (look at examples in Figure 1) and identify which ones are monochromatic and which ones are polychromatic lights. That’s right, these measures can also help the students to visualize and understand clearly the difference between a continuous spectrum and a discrete spectrum. Furthermore, this experiment can help students to associate a wavelength to a color.