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More generally, the term cross-section is used in physics to quantify the probability of a certain particle-particle interaction, e.g., scattering, electromagnetic absorption, etc. (Note that light in this context is described as consisting of particles, i.e., photons.) A typical absorption cross-section has units of cm 2 ⋅molecule −1.
The absorption coefficient is fundamentally the product of a quantity of absorbers per unit volume, [cm −3], times an efficiency of absorption (area/absorber, [cm 2]). Several sources [2] [12] [3] replace nσ λ with k λ r, where k λ is the absorption coefficient per unit density and r is the density of the gas.
In physics, the cross section is a measure of the probability that a specific process will take place in a collision of two particles. For example, the Rutherford cross-section is a measure of probability that an alpha particle will be deflected by a given angle during an interaction with an atomic nucleus.
Observed cross sections vary enormously: for example, slow neutrons absorbed by the (n, ) reaction show a cross section much higher than 1,000 barns in some cases (boron-10, cadmium-113, and xenon-135), while the cross sections for transmutations by gamma-ray absorption are in the region of 0.001 barn.
The formula describes both the Thomson scattering of low energy photons (e.g. visible light) and the Compton scattering of high energy photons (e.g. x-rays and gamma-rays), showing that the total cross section and expected deflection angle decrease with increasing photon energy.
To describe the attenuation coefficient in a way independent of the number densities n i of the N attenuating species of the material sample, one introduces the attenuation cross section = (). σ i has the dimension of an area; it expresses the likelihood of interaction between the particles of the beam and the particles of the species i in the ...
Mass attenuation coefficients of selected elements for X-ray photons with energies up to 250 keV. The mass attenuation coefficient, or mass narrow beam attenuation coefficient of a material is the attenuation coefficient normalized by the density of the material; that is, the attenuation per unit mass (rather than per unit of distance).
X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is a widely used technique for determining the local geometric and/or electronic structure of matter. [1] The experiment is usually performed at synchrotron radiation facilities, which provide intense and tunable X-ray beams. Samples can be in the gas phase, solutions, or solids. [2]