K-alpha

Atomic levels involved in copper Kα and Kβ emission

In X-ray spectroscopy, K-alpha emission lines result when an electron transitions to the innermost "K" shell (principal quantum number 1) from a 2p orbital of the second or "L" shell (with principal quantum number 2). The line is actually a doublet, with slightly different energies depending on spin-orbit interaction energy between the electron spin and the orbital momentum of the 2p orbital. K-alpha is typically by far the strongest X-ray spectral line for an element bombarded with energy sufficient to cause maximally intense X-ray emission.

The analogous K-alpha spectra line in hydrogen is known as Lyman alpha; however because of hydrogen's small nuclear charge, this line is in the ultraviolet, not the X-ray range. See Siegbahn notation for the newer IUPAC-recommended spectral notation system.

An example of K-alpha lines are those seen for iron as iron atoms radiating X-rays spiralling into a black hole at the center of a galaxy [3]. For such purposes, the energy of the line is adequately calculated to 2-digit accuracy by the use of Moseley's law: ${\displaystyle E=(10.2eV)\left(Z-1\right)^{2}}$, where Z is the atomic number. For example, K-alpha for iron (Z = 26) is calculated in this fashion as 10.2 eV (25)2 = 6.38 keV energy. For astrophysical purposes, Doppler and other effects (such as gravitational broadening) show the iron line to no better accuracy than 6.4 keV. [4]

References

1. NIST X-Ray Transition Energies Database [1]
2. Spectr-W3 database
3. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory X-Ray Data Booklet [2]