Is there a database of emission spectra of wavenumber and intensity for all elements?

Question

Is there a database of emission spectra of wavenumber and intensity for all elements?

I have been trying to get the emission spectra of all elements from the Atomic Spectra Database but from what I can tell there is no easy way to get all of the data. Please, I just need a simple spreadsheet of the emission spectrum in the format of wavenumber and intensity for all of the elements.

Once I have that, then I can start interpreting the data from my spectrometer.

Answer 1

There really isn't anything more comprehensive than the NIST ASD, which you've already found.

• If what you want is to do a direct data import into some other program, then you can choose to get the output as ASCII and re-import or re-process that in your software of choice.
• If you want to get a comprehensive list that's not narrowed by element, then you can do an All Spectra search by leaving the element field blank and specifying a wavelength range.

(For more on the different ways you can interact with the data, see the NIST ASD help pages.) I would be extremely surprised is there is anything like what you're looking for that's not listed in the ASD's Other Databases page.

And also, just to be clear: the line intensity is not something that can make it into databases, because it depends on the conditions of the emission, including temperature and pressure. (As a basic example, increasing the temperature will increase the strength of the higher components of any Rydberg series because there's more population in those states to transition from; you get even more changes with molecules. Similarly, if you're doing absorption spectra, then you need the lower state to be populated, and that population decreases with temperature.)

What you can (and do) get in databases are measures of the transition strength, such as the oscillator strength or the Einstein A coefficient, and those give an indication of how strong the line will be, but they are never a direct predictor of the intensities you will observe in any particular experiment.