Estimation of component spectral curves from unknown mixture spectra

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a method which uniquely determines a set of single curves, each as an estimate of a component spectrum. No reference spectrum from a library is necessary; the spectrum set of mixtures of unknown components with various concentrations is used for the estimation of component spectral curves. The method is based on entropy minimization. In comparison with an earlier method [Appl. Opt. 22, 3599 (1983)], which gives the bands of the possible component spectra, this method has the advantage of providing a unique estimation of the component spectra, which helps chemists with quantitative analysis and further mathematical processing. Two experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method: for infrared absorption spectra of xylene isomers and visible absorption spectra of dyes.