To provide a light emitting device that can easily and inexpensively generate a continuous spectrum of visible light having a wide wavelength band and, in addition, can solve the various imperfections of the conventional light source at once.

In this light emitting device 10, the active layer 5 of a double hetero-light emitting layer section 8 composed of a compound semiconductor is constituted to contain multiple unit light emitting layers having different types of band gap energy. The light emitting element 10 generates and outputs light having a pseudo continuous spectrum obtained by synthesizing in a pseudo-executing way continuous spectra securing effective wavelength regions having intensities which are ≥5% as strong as a peak intensity over ≥50 nm based on the combination of the light rays emitted from the unit light emitting layers.