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Low‐energy contamination of Mo microsource X‐ray radiation: analysis and solution of the problem
Author(s) -
Macchi Piero,
Bürgi HansBeat,
Chimpri Abita S.,
Hauser Jürg,
Gál Zoltán
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of applied crystallography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.429
H-Index - 162
ISSN - 1600-5767
DOI - 10.1107/s0021889811016232
Subject(s) - contamination , radiation , photon , optics , aluminium , simple (philosophy) , filter (signal processing) , materials science , low energy , high energy , energy (signal processing) , physics , optoelectronics , atomic physics , electrical engineering , engineering , metallurgy , ecology , philosophy , epistemology , quantum mechanics , biology
In recent years, microsource sealed tubes in combination with multilayer optics have been adopted in many crystallography laboratories for very low power X‐ray generation, monochromatization and high‐brilliance microfocusing. All these factors allow high‐performance experiments on a laboratory scale. However, a fundamental defect of this technology has been discovered, namely a significant contamination of the characteristic radiation by low‐energy photons. Some simple experiments are reported, showing that the contamination can significantly reduce the accuracy of the measured intensities, especially when Mo K α radiation is used. A simple and economic solution to the problem is proposed: an aluminium filter approximately 100 µm thick, which efficiently removes the low‐energy contaminant photons.