Precision Measurement of theLX-Ray Spectra of Uranium and Plutonium

Abstract

Twenty uranium L x-ray transitions have been measured using a commercial, sealed off, uranium target x-ray tube. Twelve plutonium L x-ray transitions have been measured in conventional x-ray fluorescence from a 5.86-g sample. All lines were measured with high precision using the two-crystal spectrometer, and corrected for the effects of temperature on the grating space of calcite, the effects of vertical divergence, and the effects of crystal diffraction pattern asymmetry. The wavelengths corresponding to these transitions are given in terms of the x-unit (where the latter is so defined that the wavelength of the Mo Kai line is 707.8490 x-units) with relative errors of less than 15 ppm (parts per million) in the case of U, and less than 30 ppm in the case of Pu.

X-ray emission effects as a tool to study light actinides

“…The LX-ray spectra of actinides (U+ Am) were carefully described in [1]. In our investigation the most intensive 11 lines were selected in order to study light actinides.…”

Effect of statistical counting errors on wavelength criteria for x-ray spectra

“…We will denote the peak found by any of these methods as the extrapolated peak. For symmetric lines it is also possible to use the average of the midpoints of several chords [26] or even the midpoint of a single chord [27] as a mean s of determining the peak. (Since the lines are assumed symmetric, this technique might equally well be said to determine the centroid or the median.)…”