X-ray (history and production)

by : Pratap Singh
SY (IMT)
History
 Discovered by Sir W.C. Roentgen in 1895.
 He was a professor at Wuerzburg University in Germany.
 He was working on the cathode ray tube( crookes tube) in
his laboratory, he observed a florescent glow of crystals on
table near his tube.
 Tube contains glass envelop with positive and negative
electrodes ( evacuated).
 With high voltage applied, tube produce florescent glow.
 He noticed that a board ( covered with phosphorus) placed
few feet behind him start to glow even after covering the
tube.
 This rays can pass through the substances and have
penetrating property.
 Sir Roentgen named this new type of rays as X
rays(unknown rays).
 Later he found that this unknown rays can pass through
the human tissues but not metals and bones.
 One of his experiment was a film of his wife’s hand.
 Right after the discovery of his experiment , physicians
were already using X-rays to examine bone fractures and
in battlefields to examine bullets.
X-rays are high energy radiations
They have short wavelength and high frequency.
X-rays comes in the EM spectrum.
They do not need any medium to travel.

X-rays started to use in India in 1898.

Production of X-rays
X-rays are produce when highly energetic electrons
interacts with matter and convert their K.E. into
electromagnetic radiations.
X-rays produced from x-ray tube (evacuated) contain
source and target of electron, external energy source
( generator).
Source ( cathode) is negatively charged and target
( anode) is positively charged.
Cathode has filament and focusing cup.
When electricity passes through HT cable ,the filament
( tungsten ) gets heated and produce electrons.
Thermionic emission – emission of electrons from a
heated source.
When electrons produced it travels from cathode side to
anode side.
Electrons produced from the filament part .
Focusing cup gives direction to the path towards anode.
Due to high potential difference(voltage) between the
electrodes ,electrons attain kinetic energy and gets
accelerated towards anode.
Then these high energetic electrons interacts with target
and produce x-ray photons.
Bremsstrahlung spectrum
 The conversion of electron K.E. into electromagnetic
radiation produces x-rays.
 The kinetic energy gained by the electrons is directly
proportional to the voltage applied.
 On impact with target , energy conversion occurs.
 There is a coulombic force of nucleus which attracts
the electrons and deaccelerate it.
 The kinetic energy lost by the electron will be the
energy of x-ray photons.
The subatomic distance between bombarding electron and
nucleus determines the energy lost by the electrons.
Coulombic force of attraction increases with inverse square
of the interaction distance .
Ie. Large distance results in weak force and low energy x-
ray photons .
The direct interaction of electron and nucleus ( tungten)
,this is a very rare moment and have very low probability.
Therefore, low energy of x-rays are produces abundantly
as compared to the maximum energy of incident electrons.
 Therefore,99 percent of energy converted into heat and
only 1 percent of energy gets converted into x-ray.

Characteristic X-rays
 This type of x-rays are produced by the interaction of
binded electons and bombarding electrons.
 Each electrons in the target atom has binding energy
that depends on the type of shell.
 Closest to the nucleus will have high binding
energy( K shell with 2 electrons)
 The L shell will have next highest energy as compare
to K shell ( with 8 electrons).
 When the energy of the bombarding or incident
electrons higher than the binding energy of an electron.
Then on collision this incident electron eject the
binded electron and ionize the atom.
 The unfilled shell makes the atom energetically
unstable.
 To attain the stable state , electron from outer shell fill
the space in inner shell to fill the vacancy.
This transition of electron to the lower energy state ( shell)
results in release of energy equals to the binding energy
difference between the shells.
For tungten
Ekshell – Elshell = 69.5 keV – 10.2 keV = 59.3 keV
 Characteristic x-ray production in an x-ray tube is mostly
the result of electron interaction.
 The number of C. x-ray relative to bremsstrahlung x-ray
increases with bombarding electron energies above the
threshold energy for C. x-ray.
Thank you so
much everyone