Moderator: physicalattraction
Ik zou hier zelf niet te veel conclusies uit durven trekken...However, this mechanism does not have exclusivity in interactions of this nature and is one of 12 theoretically possible interactions [27]. As noted in the prologue; Compton scattering and pair production are an example of two other competing mechanisms. Indeed, even if the photoelectric effect is the favoured reaction for a particular single-photon bound-electron interaction, the result is also subject to statistical processes and is not guaranteed, albeit the photon has certainly disappeared and a bound electron has been excited (usually K or L shell electrons at nuclear (gamma ray) energies).
A crude approximation, for photon energies above the highest atomic binding energy, is given by :
\(\sigma = \mathrm{constant} \cdot \frac{Z^n}{E^3}\)Here Z is atomic number and n is a number which varies between 4 and 5. (At lower photon energies a characteristic structure with edges appears, K edge, L edges, M edges, etc.)
