How do different materials produce different colored flames when burned?

[kitkat]

why does the burning of different materials often produce flames of different colors?


I know that various colors of flames are due to excitation...but how is that applied here?

Kat

 

[chroot]

When you heat the sample up, you're exciting some of the atoms' electrons, which then fall to lower energy states and emit photons. Every element has a unique emission spectrum, due to the specific energy levels its electrons may have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_test

- Warren