Notebook # 14

X-Ray Target Interactions

A

Heat production

As the incident electron (Ie-) hits the outer shell electrons, it creates a vibration which causes them to emit
infrared heat. The outer shells dont have a lot of energy and are pretty stable so when a high speed incident
electron goes through outer shell, they start to vibrate which causes heat (infrared radiation). Once the
Incident electron passes by, the vibration stops until another passes, and the more they pass by the outer
shell the more infrared radiation heat is created.
B

Bremsstrahlung Interaction

Most photons are produced by Brems target interactions. Brems interaction only occurs when the incident
electron interacts with the force field of the nucleus. The nucleus has a positive charge and the incident
electron has a negative charge so there is a mutual attraction between them. As the Ie- travels towards the
nucleus, the force field causes it to slow down or brake and then change directions, which causes the electron
to lose energy. The energy that is lost during the brake is emitted as x-ray photons. Their energy is exactly the
difference between the entering and exiting kinetic energy of the electron. At a larger distance (electron to
nucleus) very little kinetic energy is lost which results in low energy brems and closer distances more energy is
lost which results in higher energy brems radiation. A direct impact to nucleus is rare but it results in the loss
of all electrons kinetic energy which then drifts away to join the current flow. Between 80 and 100 kVp, 8090% of primary beam is produced by Brems interaction. The bremsstrahlung photons energy is exactly the
difference between the entering and exiting kinetic energy of the electron.
C

Characteristic Interaction

Characteristic interactions only occur when the incident electron interacts with an inner-shell electron (kshell). The Ie- must have a lot of energy to kick out an electron from k-shell (ionizing the atom). The Ie- will
continue but in a slight different direction. The electron hole in the k shell makes the atom unstable so an
electron from another shell will drop into the hole. The dropping of an electron from outer higher energy
state to inner low energy state results in the energy difference between 2 shells being emitted as x-ray
photons. The emissions are called characteristic photons because their energy is exactly the difference
between the binding energy of the outer and inner shells between which the electron dropped. These
interactions of dropping electrons into the empty hole continue until the outermost shell is missing an
electron. Characteristic photons are very predictable. Characteristic photons from other shells (L,M,N,O) have
energies that are too low to be used for diagnostic radiology. Characteristics only occur when kev/kVp is 70 or
more because removal of k shell electron from tungsten requires 69.5 keV. 10-20% of the primary beam is
produced by characteristics interactions.
The k shell emissions form a characteristic peak at the effective energy which is 69 keV. Kilovoltage peak of
the exposure is the maximum possible energy for any photon that exits the x-ray tube.
Increase in amplitude represents more emitted photons due to higher energy of each Ie- that hits the target. As
efficiency of the production of x-rays increases the emission spectrum changes.