Effect of Atomic Level Width on Ge(Li) X-ray Spectra

Abstract

The shapes of x-ray and γ-ray peaks have been studied with the use of a high resolution Ge(Li) spectrometer. The Kα x-ray peaks of high Z elements have been found to exhibit larger width compared to the width of γ-ray peaks of same energy. This excess width has been assigned to the natural energy width of characteristic x-ray lines. An analytical study of the variation of the observed width with the natural width of the incident radiation has been made. The computed results are in excellent agreement with the experimental observation.