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18. When incident electrons strike the target, they transfer their kinetic energy to the toms of the
target material, which produces x-ray photons
a. The greater the mass or speed of electrons, the greater the quantity and quality of
photons produced
19. 3 Target Interactions:
a. Heat Production
i. Over 99.8% of the kinetic energy of the electrons is converted to heat
ii. Kinetic energy of incident electrons increase, so does efficiency of photon
production
b. Bremsstrahlung Radiation:
i. Occurs when the incident electron interacts with the force field of the nucleus
ii. The force field causes the incident electron to slow down and diverts the
electron course
iii. The energy that is lost during braking is emitted as x-ray photons
iv. Bremsstrahlung photons are the difference between the entering and exiting
kinetic energy of the electron
v. At closer distances, more energy is lost, resulting in high Brems radiation
vi. Only when the incident electron loses all its excess kinetic energy would the
electron drift away to join the current flow
c. Characteristic Radiation:
i. Occurs when the incident electron interacts with an inner-shell electron
ii. Must have enough energy to knock an inner-shell electron from orbit
iii. Electron hole has been created in the inner-shell making the atom unstable
iv. Characteristic photons are the difference between the binding energy of the out
and inner shells between which the electron dropped
v. Characteristic cascade is when an electron has dropped to fill the hole another
electron will drop to fill the hole and so on
vi. Only electrons that drops into the K-shell will produce characteristic photons
within diagnostic range
20. Filtration (the process of eliminating undesirable low-energy x-ray photons by the insertion of
absorbing materials into the primary beam)
a. Reason for filtration:
i. The elimination of photons that would cause increased radiation does to the
patient but would not enhance the radiograph image
ii. Low-energy photons do not have enough energy to pass through the patient
and make any contribution to the image
1. Therefore, eliminating low-energy photons is desirable
b. Expressed numerically in terms of half-value layer (HVL)
i. HVL is that amount of absorbing material that will reduce the intensity of the
primary beam to one-half its original value
c. Types of filtration:
i. Inherent = results from the composition of the tube and housing
1. Examples: glass envelop of the tube
2. Dielectric oil that surrounds the tube
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