Patent ID: 8742351

Claim:
A spectrophotometer for throwing measurement light onto a sample, for detecting transmitted light from the sample by means of a detector, and for obtaining information relating to absorption of light at a specific wavelength by the sample based on detection data, comprising: a) a recognizing means for obtaining the detection data continuously or at predetermined intervals of time, and for recognizing that a sample to be analyzed is set in an optical path judging from a degree of a temporal change in the detection data; and b) a processing means for processing the detection data, wherein the processing means initiates, in response to a recognition by the recognizing means, a process in which the detection data is treated as measurement data for the sample, but the processing means performs a process in which the detection data is treated as background data with no sample while the detection data is obtained before the recognizing means recognizes a presence of the sample to be analyzed and the temporal change of the detection data is within a predetermined threshold range.