Investigation of spectral resolution in a Czerny Turner spectrograph

This article describes a smiple and low-cost Czerny-Turner spectrograph capable to operate in spectral range from approximately 350–900 nm. A sine drive assembly was used for linearizing the wavelength scale. The wavelength and pixel position calibration problem have been solved using light sources with known wavelength emission lines, and a polynomial fitting method to find the relationship between diffraction wave-lengths and pixel numbers. The pixel resolution ∼0.015 nm/pixels and FWHM ∼0.1 nm at 170 μm entrance slit width are sophisticated enough to serve well in a research laboratory, yet is simple and inexpensive enough to be affordable for educational use.