Abstract
This work is undertaken to determine the theoretical prediction of the cross-section of atoms for x-ray production under bombardment of positively charged particles. | When a target is bombarded by protons or heavier ions, electrons are ejected from the atomic shells of the target atoms. If an impact removes an electron from the innermost K-shell, the filling of the vacancy leads to the emission of x-rays characteristic of the element bombarded. The cross-section of such an impact will depend mainly on the following two factors: | 1. Ep, the energy of the incident particle. | 2. The binding energy of the electron shell in the atom. | The theoretical development in this work is based upon the plane wave Born approximation (PWBA) as worked out by Merzbacher and his co-workers (Me58, Me73). In Chapter III, Merzbacher's development of the theory is presented as is found in (Me58), but with many of the missing steps worked out in detail. In this treatment, the projectile-atom system is treated as a quantum mechanical system, with the incoming projectile considered as a plane wave which suffers negligible scattering. Corrections to this model to treat projectile motion such as the dashed-line in Fig. 1, and other effects are discussed (BA 73).