Introduction to X-rays

This is from 1895, when a German scientist, William Rowingen, was trying to find out if cathode rays could pass through glass. He found in his experiment that when a cathode ray with much more energy than the target material (anode), When electrons collide, some radiation is emitted and reflects on a nearby fluorescent screen. He observed that only solid objects are reflected on a fluorescent screen, ie when they collide with a body. It reflects only the solid parts of the body. Once he passed these rays through his wife's hand and only the bones were reflected on the fluorescent screen, which makes it clear that they pass easily through the flesh. And because of his greatness, he is very important in the field of medicine. The photograph of his wife's hand on the X-ray photography plate was the first discovery of the use of X-rays in medicine. He did not know anything about these rays, so he named them "X", meaning unknown rays. The wavelengths of X-rays range from about 0.01 nanometers to 10 nanometers. William Rowingen was the first physicist to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1902.

The nature of these rays was first introduced by a Berkeley scientist in 1906, and only six years later another scientist named Laue discovered their wavelength.

The discovery of X-rays led to rapid development in the medical field and it soon became an important diagnostic tool in medicine, giving doctors the opportunity to see the human body from the inside for the first time without any surgery. A few weeks later, Dr. Romanoch not only diagnosed different parts of the body but also removed frogs and insects with X-rays. Can also be used to impress.

The Reese was first used on a military battlefield in 1897 to find bullets and broken bones inside patients during the Balkan Wars. Initially, it was thought to be harmless meat. But as more research on X-rays went on, it became clear that it also had side effects. In 1904, Clarence Daly, an aide to Thomas Edison, who worked extensively with X-rays, died of skin cancer. His death forced some scientists to take the risks of X-rays seriously. But despite all this, its use continued to grow, and today X-ray technology is widely used in medicine. Used in materials like material analysis and airport scanners etc.

X-rays require a target material that has a very high melting point and atomic number because if we use a lighter element, such as hydrogen, to produce X-rays, the energy of the photons emitted from them will be in kilowatts. The energy of X-ray photons is in kilo electron volts. Therefore, for the production of X-rays, we use materials whose energy is in kilowatts of electron volts. Usually, the material used for X-rays is the target. These include radium, bedenium, tungsten, and copper, etc. In addition, the energy of the beam of the electrons, which is used as a cathode in the filament tube, will be in kilowatts of electron volts, then X-rays will be produced. In the case of badenium, if the energy of the electrons is at least 35 kg electron volts, then X-rays will be produced. In the electromagnetic spectrum, these rays are found in the region between the ultraviolet and gamma rays. Happens or can be said that Photons whose frequency is lower than gamma rays and higher than ultraviolet rays are called x-rays.

Types of X-rays

1) Continuous x-rays

2) Characteristics x-rays

Continuous X-rays are produced when electrons are deflected (de-accelerated) without removing electrons from the target material. If they lose all their energy due to Columb interaction, the resulting photons or X-rays will be visible. Length is called the cut-off view of the letter

λmin = hc / eV

Characteristic X-rays are X-rays that result from an inertial transition. An inertial transition means that when electrons collide with the target atoms instead of deflecting them, the electrons are removed from them. Electrons will come out of the shell and vacancies will be created there. In order to complete these vaccines, when electrons come from other shells, they will have to release energy and that energy will be released in the form of X-ray photons.