Characteristic Radiation - Video Lesson

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. This video is an overview of characteristic radiation. One of the target interactions that creates x-ray photons in the x-ray tube. Characteristic x-ray photons are produced at specific narrow bands of energy, which is different from the continuous x-ray spectrum produced by bremsstrahlung radiation and characteristic x rays account for a much smaller percentage of the total photons in the x-ray beam. So how is characteristic radiation produced? An electron from the cathode collides with an inner shell electron in the tungsten atom. This electron gets knocked out of its orbit and leaves a vacancy in the inner shell. This is called ionization. The vacancy makes the atom unstable. And so immediately an electron from the outer shell will drop to fill the void. We call this the