ABSTRACT
While the technique of x-ray fluorescence analysis was established with Moseley's discovery and was applied very early, the sensitivity of the technique has steadily improved with technological advances, and its applicability has widened. In particular the introduction of nuclear techniques has led to the attainment of small spatial resolutions and low detection limits. The influence of the nuclear sciences is shown in the sometimes misleading use of nuclear units to describe the atomic process of ionization, such as quoting cross section values in barns. One liberty taken in this chapter is the specification of x-ray energy E in kiloelectronvolts (keV), not frequency, wavenumbers, or wavelength units. The conversion is E = 12.3985 fA., where A. is wavelength (A).
