Dear Srinidhi Bheesette ,

please see the sections ' effect of kV ' and ' kV effect on spectrum ' at:

http://www.sprawls.org/ppmi2/XRAYPRO/#Spectrum

and the section 'production by electrons' at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray

and the section 'x-ray tube' at:

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

There are some calculators available for x-ray spectrum estimation such as for example 'spectr':

https://istar.jhu.edu/downloads/

good luck

The increase in x-ray tube voltage increases the amount of radiation emitted out of the x-ray tube, as well as the average photon energy (i.e., increased penetration). One of the limitations is the heat load on the anode, so the extensive cooling is then necessary.

The maximum energy limit of continuous X-rays from X-ray tube is called "Duane-Hunt limit" due to William Duane and Franklin L. Hunt, Physical Review 6(2) 166 (1915).

Please read "Duane-Hunt law" at Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane%E2%80%93Hunt_law

If you are within the range 20 kV < U < 640 kV and you use a tungsten anode you can use simulated results by

Hernandez & Boone, Unfiltered Monte Carlo-based tungsten anode spectral model from 20 to 640 kV, in: Medical Imaging 2014: Physics of Medical Imaging, Vol. 9033 of Proceedings of theInternational Society for Optical Engineering, 2014.

You can see examples (with the intention of filter analysis, but there are also unfiltered (0.8 mm Be) spectra):

Preprint Optimal X-ray filters for EDXRF analysis

There you can also find a link to a C program called xfilter.

It is a bit "too much" for this task, but nevertheless you can use it to produce X-ray tube spectra:

-> download

-> unpack

-> run "make" in the xfilter directory (where the Makefile is located)

Now you can run "xfilterSpecB.exe" in a terminal. It will show you how to run it.

For example, run:

xfilterSpecB.exe 180 6 0 8 90 CdTeResp.dat

(for this purpose only the first parameter is of importance you are simulating U=180 kV; the 6 is the atomic number of the filter (carbon), the 0 is the thickness of the filter)

The results are written in xfilterSpecB.dat and can be plotted with the gnuplot script xfilterSpecB.plt (assuming gnuplot is installed). The tube spectrum is labeled as F_F (a filtered flux with a 0 thickness filter). The other plots you can ignore.

Hi Sri,

When electrons impact into the anode you get two main types of radiation. Characteristic X-rays - where the inbound electron knocks anode material electrons out of their orbitals (radiation is released when higher electrons fill these). Inbound electrons are also decelerated as they travel through the anode generating Bremsstrahlung radiation - which are x-rays with energy anywhere up to the energy of the inbound electron. Note that in both cases, x-rays are produced at different depths within the anode and are attenuated on the way out - effecting the energy profile of the final beam (along with any filtering). It is common to use Monte Carlo models to obtain the connection between voltage and spectral profile (there are many publicly available models that are applicable to most common x-ray tubes - such as the one Daniel suggested). I would recommend having a chat with Marzieh and/or Nannette about it.

Cheers,

Christopher