THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

The electromagnetic (EM) spectrum is the range of all types of EM radiation. Radiation is
energy that travels and spreads out as it goes – the visible light that comes from a lamp in
your house and the radio waves that come from a radio station are two types of
electromagnetic radiation. The other types of EM radiation that make up the
electromagnetic spectrum are microwaves, infrared light, ultraviolet light, X-
rays and gamma-rays. You know more about the electromagnetic spectrum than you may
think. The image below shows where you might encounter each portion of the EM
spectrum in your day-to-day life.

X-ray: A dentist uses X-rays to image your teeth, and airport security uses them to see
through your bag. Hot gases in the Universe also emit X-rays.

X-RAYS

As the wavelengths of light decrease, they increase in energy. X-rays have smaller
wavelengths and therefore higher energy than ultraviolet waves. We usually talk about X-
rays in terms of their energy rather than wavelength. This is partially because X-rays have
very small wavelengths. It is also because X-ray light tends to act more like a particle than a
wave. X-ray detectors collect actual photons of X-ray light - which is very different from the
radio telescopes that have large dishes designed to focus radio waves!
X-rays were first observed and documented in 1895 by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, a
German scientist who found them quite by accident when experimenting with vacuum
tubes.
A week later, he took an X-ray photograph of his wife's hand which clearly revealed her
wedding ring and her bones. The photograph electrified the general public and aroused
great scientific interest in the new form of radiation. Roentgen called it "X" to indicate it
was an unknown type of radiation. The name stuck, although (over Roentgen's objections),
many of his colleagues suggested calling them Roentgen rays. They are still occasionally
referred to as Roentgen rays in German-speaking countries.
The Earth's atmosphere is thick enough that virtually no X-rays are able to penetrate from
outer space all the way to the Earth's surface. This is good for us but also bad for astronomy
- we have to put X-ray telescopes and detectors on satellites! We cannot do X-ray
astronomy from the ground.

How do we "see" using X-ray light?

What would it be like to see X-rays? Well, we wouldn't be able to see through people's
clothes, no matter what the ads for X-ray glasses tell us! If we could see X-rays, we could
see things that either emit X-rays or halt their transmission. Our eyes would be like the X-
ray film used in hospitals or dentist's offices. X-ray film "sees" X-rays, like the ones that
travel through your skin. It also sees shadows left by things that the X-rays can't travel
through (like bones or metal).
When you get an X-ray taken at a hospital, X-ray sensitive film is put on one side of your
body, and X-rays are shot through you. At a dentist, the film is put inside your mouth, on
one side of your teeth, and X-rays are shot through your jaw, just like in this picture. It
doesn't hurt at all - you can't feel X-rays.

Because your bones and teeth are dense and absorb more X-rays then your skin does,
silhouettes of your bones or teeth are left on the X-ray film while your skin appears
transparent. Metal absorbs even more X-rays - can you see the filling in the image of the
tooth?

When the Sun shines on us at a certain angle, our shadow is projected onto the ground.
Similarly, when X-ray light shines on us, it goes through our skin, but allows shadows of our
bones to be projected onto and captured by film.
This is an X-ray photo of a one year old girl. Can you see the shadow of what she
swallowed?
We use satellites with X-ray detectors on them to do X-ray astronomy. In astronomy, things
that emit X-rays (for example, black holes) are like the dentist's X-ray machine, and the
detector on the satellite is like the X-ray film. X-ray detectors collect individual X-rays
(photons of X-ray light) and things like the number of photons collected, the energy of the
photons collected, or how fast the photons are detected, can tell us things about the object
that is emitting them.

To the right is an image of a real X-ray detector. This instrument is called the Proportional
Counter Array and it is on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite. It looks very
different from anything you might see at a dentist's office!

What does X-ray light show us? Many things in space emit X-rays, among them are black
holes, neutron stars, binary star systems, supernova remnants, stars, the Sun, and even
some comets! The Earth glows in many kinds of light, including the energetic X-ray band.
Actually, the Earth itself does not glow - only aurora produced high in the Earth's
atmosphere. These aurora are caused by charged particles from the Sun.
To the left is the first picture of the Earth in X-rays, taken in March, 1996 with the orbiting
Polar satellite. The area of brightest X-ray emission is red. The energetic charged particles
from the Sun that cause aurora also energize electrons in the Earth's magnetosphere. These
electrons move along the Earth's magnetic field and eventually strike the Earth's
ionosphere, causing the X-ray emission. These X-rays are not dangerous because they are
absorbed by lower parts of the Earth's atmosphere. (The above caption and image are from
the Astronomy Picture of the Day for December 30, 1996.)
Recently, we learned that even comets emit X-rays! This image of Comet Hyakutake was
taken by an X-ray satellite called ROSAT, short for the Roentgen Satellite. (It was named
after the discoverer of X-rays.)

The Sun also emits X-rays - here is what the Sun looked like in X-rays on April 27th, 2000.
This image was taken by the Yokoh satellite.
Many things in deep space give off X-rays. Many stars are in binary star systems - which
means that two stars orbit each other. When one of these stars is a black hole or a neutron
star, material is pulled off the normal star. This materials spirals into the black hole or
neutron star and heats up to very high temperatures. When something is heated to over a
million degrees, it will give off X-rays!

The above image is an artist's conception of a binary star system - it shows the material
being pulled off the red star by its invisible black hole companion and into an orbiting disk.

After UV come X-rays, which, like the upper ranges of UV are also ionizing. However, due to
their higher energies, X-rays can also interact with matter by means of the Compton effect.
Hard X-rays have shorter wavelengths than soft X-rays and as they can pass through many
substances with little absorption, they can be used to 'see through' objects with
'thicknesses' less than that equivalent to a few meters of water. One notable use is
diagnostic X-ray imaging in medicine (a process known as radiography). X-rays are useful
as probes in high-energy physics. In astronomy, the accretion disks around neutron
stars and black holes emit X-rays, enabling studies of these phenomena. X-rays are also
emitted by the coronas of stars and are strongly emitted by some types of nebulae.
However, X-ray telescopes must be placed outside the Earth's atmosphere to see
astronomical X-rays, since the great depth of the atmosphere of Earth is opaque to X-rays
(with areal density of 1000 grams per cm2), equivalent to 10 meters thickness of
water.[19] This is an amount sufficient to block almost all astronomical X-rays (and also
astronomical gamma rays—see below).

CHARACTERISTICS OF X-RAY WAVES

X-rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation. They belong to the short-wavelength, high-
frequency end of the electromagnetic spectrum, between the gamma and the ultraviolet
radiation. They have wavelengths in the range of 10-8 m to 10-11 m (10nm – 0.01nm). Their
frequency range is 3x1016Hz to 3x1019Hz.

X-rays can be produced in several ways: by the movement of electrons in atoms or by

transformation of kinetic energy to Bremsstrahlung radiation. It is when particles with high
energy (ex: electrons, protons or heavier ions) or photons hit the surface of a solid material
(ex: metal) that x-rays are produced.
When a photon collides with another atom, the atom may absorb the photon’s energy
causing an electron to jump to a higher energy level. This can only happen if the energy
level of the photon matches the energy difference between the two electron levels. The
electron then falls back to its original energy level, releasing the extra energy in the form of
a light photon.
When the fast electrons, protons or heavier ions collide with the atoms of the solid
material, they slow down or completely stop. This is when their kinetic energy is
transformed to Bremsstrahlung radiation. Bremsstrahlung has a wide rage of X-ray
wavelengths and in the spectrum you can also find characteristic X-rays that are associated
with the atoms of the material that is used.
The soft tissue in our body is composed of atoms that do not absorb X-ray photons very
well, because their energy levels do not match the energy of the photons. However, the
bone tissue absorbs these same photons quite well, due to the calcium atoms that have
higher energy levels between its atoms that match the photons' energy. In air filled organs
there is hardly any absorption (because of the air) and the photons easily just pass through,
hence the clear boundaries.

Types of X-rays
There are two types of X-rays, according to their photon energy. The photon energy is given
by the formula E = hν where E is the energy in Joules, h is Planck's constant and ν is the
frequency of the photon. The frequency of the photon (ν) can also be obtained from the
equation c = λν where c is the speed of light (~3.0 * 108 m/s) and λ is the photon's
wavelength. Because Planck's constant is small ( ~6.62 * 10-34 Joule-seconds), it is typically
more convenient to work in electron-Volts (eV) where one eV is about 1.602 * 10-19 Joule.
For example, visible light photons with wavelenths between 700nm and 400nm have
energies between 1.77 eV and 3.1 eV respectively.

Soft X-rays
These x-rays are defined by having photon energies below 10keV. They have less energy
than the hard x-rays, therefore they have longer wavelength. Soft X-rays are used in
radiography to take pictures of bones and internal organs. Because of their lower energy,
they do not cause much damage to tissues, unless they are repeated too often.

Hard X-rays
Hard X-rays have photon energies above 10 keV. They have shorter wavelength than the
soft x-rays. These X-rays are used in radiotherapy, a treatment for cancer. Due to their
higher energy, they destroy molecules within specific cells, thus destroying tissue. Another
use for these X-rays is in airport security scanners to examine baggage.

Production of X-rays
The X-rays were discovered in 8th November in 1895 when Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen was
working with a cathode ray tube in his laboratory. X-rays for medical diagnostic
procedures are produced in a X-ray tube.
X-ray tube
The tube itself is evacuated, and contains two electrodes:
Cathode: the heated filament acts as the cathode (negative) from which electrons are
emitted
Anode: the anode (positive) is made of a heavy metal, usually tungsten.
An external power supply produces a voltage of up to 200 kV between the two electrodes.
This accelerates the electrons across the gap between the cathode and the anode. The
kinetic energy of an electron arriving at the anode is around 200 kV. When the electrons
strike the anode at high speed, parts of their kinetic energy is transformed into X-ray
photons that emerge in all directions.
Only a small fraction of kinetic energy of electrons are converted into x-rays. The rest of the
energy is transfered to the anode as thermal energy. Some X-ray tubes have water
circulating through the anode to remove this surplus of heat.
The X-rays that emerge from the x-ray tube have a range of energies, represented in a X-ray
spectrum. This spectrum have two components: the Brehmsstrahlung radiation and the
characteristic X-rays. These arise from different ways is related to the way which an
individual electron loses it's energy when crashes into the anode.
When the electron striking into anode loses its energy and interacts with the electric fields
of the anode nucleus this may result in a single X-ray photon or several photons. These all
contribute to Brehmsstrahlung radiation.
An electron may cause a rearrangement of the electrons in the anode atom in which an
electron drops from a high energy level to a lower energy level. As it does so, it emits a
photon with a defined frequency. This contributes to the characteristic X-rays that are
characteristic of the anode (if the anode is made of copper instead of tungsten the
characteristic X-rays will be different).

IMPORTANCE OF X-RAY WAVES

Discovered in 1901, x-rays have revolutionised the world of modern medicine. In fact,
German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was even awarded a Nobel prize for his
discovery of the electromagnetic radiation. Just like gamma rays, x-rays can’t be seen, felt
or heard. Instead, they effortlessly pass through skin, bone and metal to produce images
that the human eye would never be able to see. Here are some of their most common uses:
Broken bones
Today, x-rays are an integral part of contemporary hospitals and medical centres. This is
their most common application, with doctor’s using machines to take photographs of a
patient’s body. Photographic film is placed behind the body, with the x-ray then turned on.
The rays easily pass through the skin, but take a little longer to travel through the bone.
This is why bones appear much lighter in colour. Using the results, doctors can develop
effective treatment plans.
Radiation therapy
X-rays play an important role in the fight against cancer, with high energy radiation used to
kill cancer cells and shrink tumours. Patients undergo treatment outside the body (known
as external-beam radiation therapy) or from radioactive material that’s inserted into the
body in close proximity to cancer cells. This is called internal radiation therapy,
or brachytherapy. Radiation therapy can be dangerous, yet it’s still received by around
50% of cancer patients during the course of their treatment.
Airport security
Almost every airport on the planet is now fitted with some form of x-ray security system
that scans baggage to check for dangerous items. In the past few years full body x-ray scans
have also emerged as an additional security measure.
Revealing counterfeit art
Perhaps one of the lesser known uses, x-rays are also used by art historians to detect
whether or not a picture has been painted over an existing piece.
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