Chemical Effects in Hard X-ray Photon-In Photon-Out Spectra

What is it about?

X-ray emission is classified into six categories for convenience: X-ray diagram lines, X-ray valence-band emission, radiative Auger effect, resonant X-ray emission, Compton scattering, and X-ray Raman scattering. After a brief description of the history of research on these types of emission, the chemical effects that they reveal and related topics, including high-resolution absorption measurements and the static structure factor, are reviewed. An overview of the instrumentation employed in both laboratories and synchrotron radiation facilities is also given.

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Why is it important?

Hard X-ray photon-in photon-out techniques are targeted at applications where the sample environment cannot be freely chosen. The resultant X-ray emission spectra are influenced by the chemical environments of the atoms involved. If high-resolution measurements are possible, the chemical effects in the X-ray emission spectra can provide information about the chemical states, complementary to that offered by other X-ray spectroscopies.