X – Ray

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1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 The discovery

Near the end of the nineteenth c­entury,
Röntgen was experimenting with cathode
ray tubes—­vacuum tubes similar to old-­
fashioned computer monitors. ­After plac-
ing a metal target in the electron beam,
he  noticed that phosphor b ­ ehind a wood
screen glowed and nearby photographic
plates became exposed even though pro-
tected from light. Röntgen realized that
­these effects must be due to some un-
known, “x” radiation, and he quickly began
to investigate, placing vari­ous objects in the FIGURE  1-1. An x-­ray image of Frau Röntgen’s
beam (including his wife’s hand—­the fa- hand, from On a new kind of rays, Nature 53
mous image is shown in Figure 1-1). (January 23, 1896): 274–76.
This commonly told story of the dis-
covery of x rays is a classic tale of serendipity. Imagine it—­a laboratory in Würtzburg,
Germany, cluttered with all the latest scientific apparatus of 1895: vacuum tubes,
photographic plates, jars and sheets of phosphors and metals, and an excited scientist
randomly applying high voltages. Suddenly he notices the phosphor on the other side
of the room is glowing, and William Conrad Röntgen is on his way to receiving the
first Nobel Prize in Physics. Shortly into his investigations, he happens to see the out-
line of the bones in his wife’s hand exposed on a photographic plate, and the field of
diagnostic imaging is born.
As with most ­great advances, the real story is a bit more deliberate. Röntgen, along
with several of his contemporaries, including Tesla and Hertz, was actively engaged in
research on the emissions from cathode ray tubes. The inventor of his tube, Crookes,
had previously seen shadows on photographic plates, and may have suggested that
Röntgen investigate them. However, Röntgen did quite quickly realize the significance
of his observations and rapidly began identifying many of the characteristics of

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4 ■ Chapter 1

x rays—­for example, the dependence of penetration on density and the lack of signifi-
cant refraction—as well as pioneering some of their applications.
­Today, x rays are impor­tant not only for medical imaging and baggage inspection
but also for astronomical observations, for materials analy­sis, for structure determina-
tion of viruses and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, for fluorescence analy­sis in manufacturing
quality control, and for fraud detection in art. An increasing interest in x-­ray astron-
omy was one of the major forces ­behind the development of x-­ray optics in the latter
half of the last ­century. Mirror systems similar to ­those developed for astronomy also
proved useful for synchrotron beamlines. Just as x-­ray tubes w ­ ere an accidental off-
shoot of cathode ray research, synchrotron x-­ray sources ­were originally parasitic to
particle physics: the synchrotron radiation was an unwanted consequence of acceler-
ating the particles, ­because it removes energy from the particle beam. The subsequent
development of specialized synchrotron sources with increasing brightness and num-
bers of beamlines led to creation of a w­ hole new array of x-­ray tools and a consequent
demand for an increasing array of optics.
The rapid development of x-­ray optics also has been symbiotic with the development
of detectors and compact sources. Detectors developed for particle physics, medicine,
and crystallography have found application across the dif­fer­ent fields. Similarly, the
increasing capabilities of x-­ray systems have stimulated the development of new sci-
ence, with ever-­growing requirements for intensity, coherence, and spatial and energy
resolution. X-­ray diffraction and fluorescence w­ ere early tools during the rapid devel-
opment of materials science a­ fter World War II. More recently advancements have
been made to meet the demands of shrinking feature sizes and allowed defect concen-
trations in semiconductors. The use of x-­ray diffraction, especially the development of
dedicated synchrotron beamlines, has also been stimulated by the growing demands
for rapid protein crystallography in biophysics and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal development.

1.2 What is an x ray?

Despite Röntgen’s early identification of his unknown, “x” rays as longitudinal vibra-
tions of the ether (this was just nine years ­a fter the Michelson-­Morley experiment),
x  rays proved to be simply light waves, electromagnetic radiation, with very short
wavelengths. The definition of the wavelength range considered to be in the x-­ray re-
gime differs somewhat among fields and applications, but is typically between 0.1 and
10 Å (0.01 to 1 nm). Longer wavelengths are considered to be in the range of extreme
ultraviolet (EUV), and shorter wavelengths are generally considered to be in the
gamma ray regime (although some fields make a distinction that “gamma ray” refers
only to the products of nuclear reactions).
The usual relation holds between wavelength λ and wavenumber κ (the magnitude
of the ­wavevector),
2π
λ= . (1-1)
κ
Quantum mechanics gives us the relationships between wavevector and ­momentum,

! ! h
p = "κ ⇒ λ = , (1-2)
p

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Introduction ■ 5

where h is Planck’s constant and, as u

­ sual,
h
!= . (1-3)
2π
Relativity gives us the relationship between momentum and energy U,

U 2 − (Mc 2 )2 U
U 2 = (Mc 2 )2 + p 2c 2 ⇒ p = = , (1-4)
c c

since, as photons are massless, M = 0. Thus, wavelength and energy are related ­by

hc
U= , (1-5)
λ
where c is the speed of light. Expressing h in units of eV  s, and c in units of Å/s gives
the useful result that
hc ≈ 12.4 keV  Å. (1-6)
Thus, the wavelength range from 10 to 0.1 Å corresponds to 1.2 to 124 keV in photon
energy. For comparison, a vis­i­ble light photon with a wavelength of 0.5 μm corresponds
to a photon energy of 2.5 eV, or 2.5 × 10 −3 keV. Quantum mechanics also gives us the
relationship between photon energy and f­ requency ν,

U = hν , (1-7)
which gives us the expected relationship between wavelength and ­frequency,

hc c
λ= = . (1-8)
U ν

EXAMPLE 1-1

a) What are the wavelength and frequency of the 8 keV x rays frequently used for pro-
tein crystallography experiments?
From equation 1-5,
hc 12.4 keV i Å
λ= ≈ ≈1.55 Å.
U 8 keV
From equation 1-8,

c 3 × 1018 Å/s
ν= ≈ ≈1.9 × 1018 Hz ≈1.9 exahertz ≈1.9 EHz.
λ 1.55 Å
b) For comparison, what is the wavelength of an electron with a kinetic energy of 8 keV?
The difference between the photon and electron wavelengths arises in applying
equation 1-4, ­because the electron is not massless. The kinetic energy is the

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6 ■ Chapter 1

difference between the total energy U and the rest mass energy, which for small
(nonrelativistic) momentum is

K e = U − M ec 2 = ( M e c 2 )2 + p 2 c 2 − M e c 2
p 2c 2 ⎛ 1 p 2c 2 ⎞ p2
= M ec 2 1 + − M ec 2 ≈ M ec 2 ⎜ 1 + ⎟ − M ec 2 =
( M ec ) 2 2
⎝ 2 ( M ec 2 ) ⎠
2
2M e

which is the expected, classical result. Then,

h h (6.6 × 10−34 J i s)
λ= = ≈
p 2M e (K e ) ⎛ 1.6 × 10−19 J ⎞
2(9.1 × 10−31 kg)(8 × 103 eV)⎜ ⎟⎠
⎝ 1eV
m2
kg s
≈1.4 × 10−11 s 2 ≈1.4 × 10−11 m ≈ 0.14 Å.
m2
kg 2 2
s

The electron wavelength is more than a ­factor of 10 smaller than that of the x ray
with the same kinetic energy.

1.3 What makes x rays useful?

The wavelength of x rays is in the angstrom range, similar to the spacing of atoms in a
crystal. Thus, the arrays of atoms in a crystal can act as a diffraction grating for x rays.
The 1914 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Laue for the first demonstration of
diffraction of x rays by a crystal. The 1915 prize went to William Henry Bragg and Wil-
liam Lawrence Bragg for the development of the theory that allows for association of
crystal structure with the diffraction pattern. X-­ray crystallography is routinely used
­today for applications such as verifying the crystal quality of films grown on silicon
wafers, detecting stress in airplane engines, and determining the structure of proteins
to understand their function in cancer growth. Diffraction is also used as a way to con-
trol the direction or wavelength of x rays used in
a par­tic­u­lar experiment, just as gratings are used
for vis­i­ble light. The 1936 Nobel Prize in Chem-
istry was awarded to Peter Debye for, among
other ­things, development of the theory of dif-
fraction from powders and liquids.
Short-­ wavelength, high-­ energy photons are
FIGURE  1-2. Baggage x-­ ray imaging, not easily absorbed—­ t heir high energy and
Gemini Dual-­Energy system. The color ­momentum makes them difficult to stop. This
images are produced by comparing means that x rays easily pass through materials
absorption at two dif­fer­ent x-­ray pho- such as ­human tissue for radiography or luggage
ton energies. Copyright 2016 American for baggage inspection, as shown in Figure 1-2,
Science and Engineering, Inc. or the dark paper Röntgen had used to protect

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means without prior written permission of the publisher.
Introduction ■ 7

Photon

Object Shadow

FIGURE 1-3. Making a shadow image.

his photographic plate. Absorption increases with the electron density of the mate-
rial but is lower for higher-­energy photons.
By way of analogy, consider an object with thick and thin regions like that of
Figure 1-3. If the object was made with alternating painted plywood and tissue paper,
you could map out the areas of tissue paper by throwing balls at the object and ­letting
them mark the wall ­behind the object when they passed through. If the object was
constructed of thick wood and bricks, you would need higher-­momentum projec-
tiles, perhaps bullets, to make a shadow. However, bullets would do a poor job of
making a shadow image of the tissue paper area, ­because they would pass through
the plywood as well. Thus, high-­energy (“hard”) x rays are used for inspecting ve-
hicles and steel cargo containers, as shown in Figure 1-4. Since almost all the hard
x rays would pass through a thinner object or one with a lower atomic number, creat-
ing very ­little shadow, lower-­energy (“softer”) x rays must be used to diagnose a bro-
ken hand.
­Because x rays barely interact with materials, their index of refraction in any mate-
rial is only slightly dif­fer­ent from unity. This results in sharp shadows for radiography,
­because the rays are hardly refracted, but means it is very difficult to make refractive
optics such as the lenses normally used for vis­i­ble light. The penetrating nature of

FIGURE  1-4. High-­energy x-­ray images of a cargo truck,

OmniView Dual-­Energy Transmission system. Copyright
2016 American Science and Engineering, Inc.

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8 ■ Chapter 1

x rays also makes it difficult to construct optics such as Fresnel zone plates, or even
pinholes for pinhole cameras, since the masking material must be thick compared with
the dimensions of the apertures.
The energy of an x-­ray photon, in the kiloelectronvolt range, is very much larger
than the sub-­electronvolt range typical for valence electron transitions in materials.
Hence, x-­ray properties are relatively insensitive to chemical state, unlike the changes
in color or opacity that can easily be induced for vis­i­ble light. However, x-­ray energies
are similar to ionization energies for core electrons and thus can be used to probe for
characteristic atomic transitions. X-­ray absorption spectroscopy and x-­ray fluorescence
are extremely impor­tant for elemental analy­sis. The 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics was
awarded to Siegbahn for developing the field of x-­ray spectroscopy.

1.4 The layout of the text

Any x-­ray application or experiment requires an x-­ray source and some material for
the x-­ray to interact with, including, in most cases, a detector. The next section of
the book discusses methods of generating x rays. While some sources are naturally
occurring—­radioactive materials, black holes—­the most common technique for gen-
erating x rays in the laboratory is by accelerating electrons, which generates a contin-
uum (bremsstrahlung or synchrotron radiation) and characteristic emission lines (the
same lines used for fluorescence analy­sis). X rays can also be emitted by blackbody ra-
diation from very hot plasmas such as the sun, or ­those created by very intense ­lasers.
The mechanisms for x-­ray interactions with m ­ atter (including x-­ray detection) are dis-
cussed in part III. ­These include absorption, scattering, refraction, reflection, and dif-
fraction. Applications and optics enabled by ­these interactions are included in this sec-
tion. The solutions to end-­of-­chapter prob­lems are given in the appendix.

1.5 The elusive hyphen

Just as the definition of an x ray varies between applications, so does its hyphenation
and capitalization, and you ­will encounter several styles. Grammatically, “x” is a mod-
ifier, like “optical,” so no hyphen is required. When the noun string is used as an ad-
jective, as in x-­ray beam, the hyphen is necessary. For example, when a child says
“I am three years old,” you refer to him or to her as a “three-­year-­old child.” Some jour-
nals are very strict about removing extraneous hyphens. In other journals, it is the
practice to always use the hyphen and/or to capitalize the x.

Prob­lems
SECTION 1.2
1. Planck’s constant, h, is 6.6 × 10−34 J  s. 1 eV is the energy associated with an
electron charge, qe ≈ 1.6 × 10−19 Coul, in a potential of 1 V. The speed of light is
approximately 3 × 108 m/s. Verify equation 1-6.
2. What is the wavelength of 30 keV x rays?

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Introduction ■ 9

Further reading
General references for x-­ray topics
Jens Als-­Nielsen and Des McMorrow, Ele­ments of Modern X-­ray Physics, John Wiley &
Sons, 2001.
Eric Lifshin, X-­ray Characterization of Materials, John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
A. G. Michette and C. J. Buckley, X-­ray Science and Technology, Institute of Physics
Publishing, 1993.
Alan Michette and Sławka Pfauntsch, X-­Rays: The First Hundred Years, John Wiley & Sons,
1996.
E. Spiller, Soft X-­ray Optics, SPIE Press, 1994.
David Attwood and A. Sakdinawat, X-­Rays and Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation: Princi­ples
and Applications, Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Relativity
D. Halliday, R. Res­nick, and J. Walker, Fundamentals of Physics, 10th ed., John Wiley &
Sons, 2013, chapter 37.

Historical references
Arthur Stanton, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen on a new kind of rays: Translation of a paper read
before the Würtzburg Physical and Medical Society, Nature 53 (1895): 274–76.
New York Times, February 16, 1896, Nature of the X Rays.

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