Measurement of the x-ray mass attenuation coefficients of gold in the $38--50$-keV energy range

Measurement of the x-ray mass attenuation coefficients of gold in the $38 - 50$ -keV energy range

M. T. Islam, N. A. Rae, J. L. Glover, Z. Barnea, M. D. de Jonge, C. Q. Tran, J. Wang, and C. T. Chantler

Phys. Rev. A 81, 022903 – Published 16 February 2010

Abstract

We used synchrotron x rays to measure the x-ray mass attenuation coefficients of gold at nine energies from $38$ to $50$ keV with accuracies of $0.1 %$ . Our results are much more accurate than previous measurements in this energy range. A comparison of our measurements with calculated mass attenuation coefficients shows that our measurements fall almost exactly midway between the XCOM and FFAST calculated theoretical values, which differ from one another in this energy region by about $4 %$ , even though the range includes no absorption edge. The consistency and accuracy of these measurements open the way to investigations of the x-ray attenuation in the region of the $L$ absorption edge of gold.