The Invention of X-rays was performed by a German physicist named Wilhelm Roentgen. In 1895 Roentgen found X-rays nearly by accident. Whilst doing some experiments where he passed an electric current through Crookes tubes special tubes comprising a cathode and electrode where the air has been eliminated , Roentgen noticed that photographic plates nearby started to grow fogged. When a flow of very quickly high-energy electrons strikes a metallic electrode anode, the electrons are slowed down, and a number of them penetrate into the metal. The sudden braking of the electron generates an electromagnetic radiation of very short wavelength X-rays or Roentgen rays. This radiation is generated by electrons entering into the metal and interacting with the metal atoms. The beams go through the flesh and skin easily, showing up as dark areas on the film, but with more difficulty through bone.
To discover why this happened he put black paper on the tube and then switched on the present. Nearby a screen coated with barium started to glow. This caused Roentgen to feel that unknown rays produced within the tube were passing through the paper to create this fluorescent material give out light. He called X-rays since x is a scientific number for whatever that is unknown. The most important use of X-rays is in medicine. A typical application is in the kind of X-ray machines, which take photographs of a patient’s body. When an arm or leg were broken for instance, then this limb could be set in the front of this X-ray using a piece of photographic film behind. The X -ray is turned on temporarily and goes through the film. They are slowed down and so these regions are much lighter. X-rays may also be used to kill cancer cells, but also kill healthy cells, so must be used with much care.
Other uses are in Business, at airports to assess clients and bags and by art historians to find out if a picture has been painted on top of an older one. The xrd analysis is also very significant in spectroscopy and as a foundation for X-ray crystallography. The diffraction of X-rays by a crystal in which the wavelength of X-rays is equal in size to the distances between atoms in many crystals is used to disperse X-rays in a spectrometer and to ascertain the structure of atoms or crystals. It shows well-defined wavelengths that are characteristic of the structure of the metal forming the anode a high-energy electron that penetrates to the metal atom may dislodge one of the inner electrons of the atom the empty place is taken by one of the outer electrons that consequently leaps from an outer to an inner shell and in doing this, emits energy in the form of radiation, i.e., X-rays.