Effects of noise in derivative spectrophotometry: anomalous bias arising from amplitude measurements

Abstract

During the measurement of noisy derivative spectra in the ultraviolet/visible region, the occurrence of positive bias that increased with the noise level was observed. The possible influence of the peak-finding algorithm was suspected, and when this factor was investigated, the data collected suggested that this was indeed the cause of the bias. The authors call the attention of potential users of derivative spectrophotometry to the existence of bias sources not usually taken into account.