The Siegbahn notation is used in

X-ray spectroscopy X-ray spectroscopy is a general term for several spectroscopic techniques for characterization of materials by using x-ray radiation. Characteristic X-ray spectroscopy When an electron from the inner shell of an atom is excited by the energy o ...

to name the

spectral line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

s that are characteristic to elements. It was introduced by Manne Siegbahn. The characteristic lines in X-ray emission spectra correspond to

atomic electronic transition Atomic electron transition is a change (or jump) of an electron from one energy level to another within an atom or artificial atom. It appears discontinuous as the electron "jumps" from one quantized energy level to another, typically in a fe ...

s where an electron jumps down to a vacancy in one of the inner shells of an atom. Such a hole in an inner shell may have been produced by bombardment with electrons in an

X-ray tube An X-ray tube is a vacuum tube that converts electrical input power into X-rays. The availability of this controllable source of X-rays created the field of radiography, the imaging of partly opaque objects with penetrating radiation. In contrast ...

, by other particles as in PIXE, by other X-rays in

X-ray fluorescence X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" (or fluorescent) X-rays from a material that has been excited by being bombarded with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis ...

or by

radioactive Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consi ...

decay of the atom's nucleus. Although still widely used in spectroscopy, this notation is unsystematic and often confusing. For these reasons,

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...

(IUPAC) recommends another nomenclature.

History

The use of the letters K and L to denote X-rays originates in a 1911 paper by Charles Glover Barkla, titled ''The Spectra of the Fluorescent Röntgen Radiations'' ("Röntgen radiation" is an archaic name for "X-rays"). By 1913, Henry Moseley had clearly differentiated two types of X-ray lines for each element, naming them α and β. In 1914, as part of his thesis, Ivar Malmer ( :sv:Ivar Malmer), a student of Manne Siegbahn, discovered that the α and β lines were not single lines, but doublets. In 1916, Siegbahn published this result in the journal

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

, using what would come to be known as the Siegbahn notation.

Correspondence between the Siegbahn and IUPAC notations

The table below shows a few transitions and their initial and final levels.

References

Nomenclature system for X-ray spectroscopy
(1991)

IUPAC The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...

. {{X-ray science Spectroscopy X-rays Atomic physics Quantum chemistry Astronomical spectroscopy

History

Correspondence between the Siegbahn and IUPAC notations

See also

References