Absorption length
The absorption length or attenuation length in x-ray scattering is the distance over which the x-ray beam is absorbed. By convention, the absorption length ϵ is defined as the distance into a material where the beam flux has dropped to 1/e of its incident flux.
Absorption
The absorption follows a simple Beer-Lambert law:
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The attenuation coefficient (or absorption coefficient) is simply the inverse of the absorption length; Failed to parse (MathML with SVG or PNG fallback (recommended for modern browsers and accessibility tools): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \mu = 1/}
Calculating
The absorption length arises from the imaginary part of the atomic scattering factor, f2. It is closely related to the absorption cross-section, and the mass absorption coefficient. Specifically, the atomic photoabsorption cross-section can be computed via:
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