The Atomic Weight of Nickel

Abstract

IN a paper on the absorption of Röntgen rays (Journal de Physique, p. 653, 1901) M. Benoist shows the connection between the transparency to X-rays of elementary substances and the atomic weight of those substances by means of a curve, which in general exhibits a fall of transparency with a rise in the atomic weight of the absorbing substance. In continuing investigations on secondary X-rays, Mr. C. A. Sadler and I have found that by replacing Benoist's primary beam by secondary beams from different substances, curves are obtained similar to that got by using a beam direct from an X-ray tube, except in the region of atomic weights near to that of the radiator. In those regions a strongly marked deviation occurs, showing a special transparency to the secondary radiation from a substance, by a sheet of the same substance, and a less strongly marked abnormal transparency of those substances with atomic weights differing little from that of the radiator. Also the nearer on the same side the atomic weight of the absorbing substance is to that of the radiator, the greater is the deviation from the normal transparency. This effect does not indicate that the secondary rays as emitted by the atoms of a substance are specially penetrating, but simply that in emerging from the interior atoms to the surface a selective absorption has occurred, leaving the remainder specially penetrating to further layers of the same substance and to a less extent to substances of neighbouring atomic weights. This is not a property of secondary rays alone, for experiments on primary beams which have passed through thin sheets of metal show the same effect.