X-Ray Interactions

Notebook #14- Revised

Laura Ramirez
December 7, 2016
RTE 141
Professor Yost

Target Interactions:
Heat production
-The target interactions that produce the x-ray photons consists of less than 1 percent of the total
kinetic energy of the incident electrons. Over 99.8 percent of the kinetic energy of the incident
electrons is converted to heat. There are two types of target interactions that can produce
diagnostic x-ray photons: bremsstrahlung interactions and characteristic interactions. The
interactions that will occur depends on the electron kinetic energy and the binding energy of the
electron shells of the atom. Tungsten and rhenium are used as target materials in an effort to
provide appropriate-atomic-number atoms and a maximum number of similar electron-shell
binding energies.

Bremsstrahlung Interactions:
Bremsstrahlung interactions are named by the German word for braking or slowing. The
abbreviation brems is used. Brems interactions may occur only when the incident electron
interacts with the force field of the nucleus. This incident electron must have enough energy to
pass through the orbital shells and approach the nucleus of the atom. The electrons loses and
changes direction. The energy that is lost during the braking is emitted as an x-ray photon. These
emissions are called bremsstrahlung photons and their energy is exactly the difference between
the entering and exiting kinetic energy of the electron. A regular tungsten anode, where the
majority of the radiation is generated by bremsstrahlung. Interactions, and given typical exit
window filtration. The average keV will be roughly 1/3rd of the kVp.

Characteristic Interactions:
Characteristic interactions may occur only when the incident electron interacts with an innershell electron. The incident electron must have enough energy to knock an inner-shell electron
from orbit, thereby ionizing the atom. The incident electron will usually continue but is the fact
that the electron hole that has been created in the inner shell makes the atom unstable. The
dropping of electrons from an outer, higher-energy state into an inner, lower-energy state results
in the energy difference between the two shells being emitted as an x-ray photon. These are
called characteristic photons because their energy is exactly the difference between the binding
energy of the outer and inner shells between which the electron dropped. Characteristic cascade
can produce numerous x-ray photons for each electron that leaves the atom. A tungsten atom,
with its high atomic number of 74, has sufficient electron shells to produce relatively highenergy characteristic photons.