When a solid or gaseous target is bombarded with heavy charged particles, inner shell electrons of target atoms are ionized and characteristic x rays are produced. We can easily observe these x rays with a Si(Li) detector and derive inner-shell ionization cross section from the x-ray production cross sections. In this paper, we make a review of x-ray production, inner shell ionization and Reading’s theorem in light ion·atom collisions. This theorem is one of the most important ones in the ion·atom collision physics and permits precise discussion on comparison between experimental inner-shell ionization cross sections obtained with a Si(Li) detector and the calculations based on usual theories where the incident particle is assumed to interact with only one electron in an atom and the presence of other electrons is ignored.
