Estimation of effective atomic number in the Rayleigh to Compton scattering ratio using different methods

The Rayleigh to Compton scattering ratio (R/C) is a very convenient parameter, which can be utilized in material analysis and estimating effective atomic number (Zeff). In the case for a relatively low scattering angle, for which the energy of the Compton scattered photons is not very much different from that of incident photons, the corrections due to self-absorption for Rayleigh and Compton scattering will be roughly equal. Therefore, it enables a result to be obtained which is almost independent of X-ray attenuation inside the sample and it will depend only on the material under investigation. The most frequently used method for calculation of Zeff available in literature is plotting R/C of elements as a function of atomic number and constituting the best fit curve. From this fit curve, the respective Zeff can be determined using R/C of the material. In the present study, we report Zeff of different materials using different methods such as interpolation and direct methods as possible alternatives to the most common fitting method. The results were compared with the experiments wherever possible. The agreement between interpolation method and the fitting method was found to be very satisfactory as relative changes (%) were always less than 9% while the direct method results with somehow significantly higher values of Zeff when compared to the other methods.