For crystalline materials, an incident plane wave of electrons under conditions of strong dynamical scattering sets up a standing wave within the crystal. The intensity modulations of this standing wave within the crystal unit cell are a function of the incident beam orientation and the acceleration voltage. As the scattering events (such as inner shell excitations) that lead to characteristic x-ray production are highly localized, the x-ray intensities in turn, are strongly determined by the orientation and the acceleration voltage. For a given acceleration voltage or wavelength of the incident wave, it has been shown that this orientation dependence of the characteristic x-ray emission, termed the “Borrmann effect”, can also be used as a probe for determining specific site occupations of elemental additions in single crystals.
Hard x-ray photoemission using standing-wave excitation applied to the MgO/Fe interface