X-ray Energies
X-rays are an ever-present feature of gamma-ray spectra. More often than not the origin of these is obvious, but from time to time a sample may spring suprises on us - perhaps because of self-fluorescence, for example - and an easily available resource of X-ray data is needed.
The total amount of X-ray information is huge and there seems little point in creating webpages from scratch to hold data which is already easily available elsewhere. There are three links below which may prove useful; all are to pdf files.
When identifying X-rays, remember that they always come in families. The spectrum to the right is of lead X-rays. The peaks can be identified, in increasing energy, as Ka2, Ka1, Kb1 and Kb2 - but remember that the Kb X-rays will also be accommpanied by several other lower intensity X-rays.
- Appendix C from the book; an abbreviated list of common X-rays
- Table of X-rays ordered by element (energies in eV)
- Table ordered by X-ray energy with relative intensities