The radiosensitivity produced by X-rays or gamma on a material medium, is directly proportional to the ability of the material to generate electronic equilibrium, eg. liquid substances, plastics, etc. 

The process of UV radiation is not ionization. Therefore, they are different effects.

Dear Apoorva,

what do you mean by 'UV sensitive'?

Do you think on radiation damage? Here UV photons as well as x-ray  and gammas  work via  the inherent photon energy more or less in the same way.

But when for example thinking on fluorescence; there you will find examples of materials such as the fluorophores, which are only exciteable by UV and not by x-ray or gammas.

   ....or think on UV-light sensitive film. Exposure efficiency of x-rays and gammas will be very, very  much less here.

    .... curing of adhasives by UV light.....etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorophore

Generally, when UV passes through a compound, some of its energy promotes an electron from bonding to anti-bonding orbitals and the frequency of absorption depends on the energy gap between those two energy levels. My question is that can we expect the same mechanism of x-rays or gamma rays interaction with the only difference of bigger jumps in the energy levels because of the high energy of x-rays and gamma rays?

Two things about x-rays:

• The production of x-rays is rather messy. Hence, in contrast to lasers, you get a whole bunch of different energies unless you filter them excessively (throwing away most photons). For x-rays of 10 keV and an already very small energy spread of 0.1% you are still left with energies differing by roughly 10 eV. So if you can excite an electron to an antibinding orbital, you can usually also simply ionize it at the same time.
• The electron does not come from a binding orbital as with UV radiation, but from a core orbital.

If you add these two points together, you find that, outside specialized applications, x-rays simply ionize core electrons. Hence the x-ray absorption for the average use-case is up to tiny effects determined by the atomic composition, ionization energies for the individual atomic shells etc.

In contrast, UV absorption often promotes electrons between orbitals, whose energies depends on the chemistry of the compound. Hence, x-ray and UV absorption are essentially unrelated to each other.

Ulf,

in priniciple you are right for the first stage of x-ray interaction (ionizing core shells). But at the following stages of interaction a huge number of secondary electrons will come up from a) emitted photo-electrons, b) Auger elctrons and c) recoiled electron from x-ray Compton scatter processes.

These electrons slow down due to multiple scattering processes (& increasing the number of low energy electrons) down to energies which are able to break bonds.

So x-rays themselves do not break bonds but the secondary electrons will perform that task.

Gerhard,

So called electronic equilibrium.

Apoorva: UV range: 3 - 10 eV?

Can you specify the UV energies?, and if the substance is solid, liquid, gaseous or cellular.

Yes, UV range is about 5-10eV. My material is in the form of films, it is highly UV sensitive but not much sensitive to x-rays or gamma rays. I was expecting that if it is UV sensitive then it would definitely be x-ray and gamma rays sensitive because the energy of radiations is more. Probably, I was wrong. 

@Gerhard Martens

I should have considered the secondary electrons, you are right. These secondary processes should be rather messy: considering the electron wave lengths, you are probably not restricted to dipole-allowed transitions and you have a range of energies that can be addressed, so you are going to get all sorts of transitions.

Thinking about it, there might be some connection then. For example if electrons are weakly bound, more secondary ionization may result before the energy is spent, so more molecules are ionized (which usually results in breaking chemical bonds). The binding energy may be somewhat related to UV sensitivity, though this is all vague and handwaving and not a strict relation. Correct me if I am wrong.

@ Ulf

 You are right.

Apoorva: It's possible that the grain size of the film be more sensitive to UV rays. You can making the following test: place a container/bottle plastic with water (~1 liter) the film glued to the container and then irradiate with gamma or X. The film should face the radiation source. The bottle is to generate electronic equilibrium around the film. Then it radiates another film without the water. If there is no difference the film type is not suitable for gamma measurement.

Agrees with various previous researchers. Some chemical compounds dissociated using uv. In fact uv will fully deposit energy whereas %age absorption from x gamma photons will be small. The volume also plays role and z of the film as well. Is it AgBr coated. Please note that uv do not cause band to band transitions. 

Such jumps are not possible  and extremely  rare. You do not expect electronic transitions especially  with free electrons. May be tightly bound electrons can play some role that's also impossible.  See H atom binding energy 13.6 eV so x or gamma  energy keV  or MeV  so electron do not absorb  as momentum  is not conserved. Such high energy photons see hydrogen  electron as free electron and remember free electron can not absorb photons.