Electromagnetism used to determine chemical mixtures?

[menco]

Hi everyone,

I have been given an assignment with my physics subject and describe in 400 words how electromagnetism can be used to determine the composition of different chemical mixtures

I was hoping someone could lead me to a couple of websites to do my research. I have entered about every key word i know into google but I am not having any luck finding information.

Thanks.

 

[danago]

Electromagnetic waves have been pretty revolutionary in chemical identification. The first things that come to my mind are nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and infrared spectroscopy (IR spectroscopy) which have a multitude of applications in chemistry, medical imaging, forensic science etc. If you google either of these technologies you will find heaps of information.

Here are the relevant Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_magnetic_resonance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_spectroscopy