If a molecule or atom of material has molecular weight A, the number density of such units is given by n=Nρ/A, where N is Avogadro's number and ρ is the mass density of the material. The amount of scattering from each unit can be written by assigning an imaginary cross-sectional area σ to each unit. If the current I0 is incident on a thin slice of material of thickness z and the current I remains unscattered, then the scattering cross-section σ is defined by I=IOnσz. For a specimen that is not thin, the definition must be applied to each imaginary thin slice and the result I/I0 =exp(-nσz) is obtained by integrating over the whole thickness. It is useful to separate the variable mass-thickness w=ρz from the other factors to yield I/I0 =exp(-sw), where s=Nσ/A is the scattering cross-section per unit mass.
