X-ray absorption & fluorescence
General Infomation
See the X-ray Absorption Information (11BM page) http://11bm.xor.aps.anl.gov/absorption.html
Web Links
WebAbsorb: web based calculator to estimate X-ray absorption for powder XRD capillary samples (11BM page) http://11bm.xor.aps.anl.gov/absorb/absorb.php
MuCal: calculate X-ray absorption, fluorescence and more (by C. Segre @ IIT/ANL) http://csrri.iit.edu/mucal.html
Absorption Length
The X-ray beam intensity I(x) at depth x in a material is a function of the attenuation coefficient mu, and is calculated by the Beer-Lambert law:
I(x) = Io e^(-mu * x)
The attenuation coefficient mu is typical given in inverse length units of 1/cm, and is a function of the incident wavelength, material chemistry and density. It can be calculated or estimated using the links and tables listed below.
The Absorption Length (or Attenuation Length) is then defined as the distance into a material where the incident x-ray beam intensity (Io) has decreased to 1 / e, or about 40% of the incident beam (recall that Euler's number e = 2.72).
This is a convenient description since:
(1/e) = e^(-mu * x) ln(1/e) = ln(e^(-mu * x)) 1 = mu * x x = 1/mu
as a simple example, consider a solid Nickel metal sample at room temperature probed by X-rays of energy = 30 KeV (Lambda = 0.41 A).
For Ni with density = 8.908 g*cm-3, we can calculate that mu ~ 85.0 cm-1.
Then absorption length x = 1/85 = 0.011 cm = 110 microns.
Capillary Transmission
Continuing with the above example for capillary transmission X-ray diffraction experiments, we can consider a cylindrical shaped solid Nickel metal sample of diameter (2*R) = 0.11 mm (or 0.011 cm)
Since mu = 85 cm-1, then mu*R = 0.935, therefore the total incident x-rays transmitted through the sample is = e^(-2*muR) = ~ 40%
Software
pyFPRIME and ABSORB
https://subversion.xor.aps.anl.gov/trac/pyFprime/
These two python GUI programs are used for computing approximate x-ray scattering cross sections (f, f' and f") for individual elements using the Cromer & Liberman algorithm.
FPRIME computes and plots elemental scattering factors.
ABSORB computes scattering and absorption for a given composition and makes an attempt to estimate density as well. ABSORB can be also accessed as a web utility (see http://11bm.xor.aps.anl.gov/absorb/absorb.php).
