Hi Matthew,

On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 8:13 PM, Matthew Marcus <mamarcus@lbl.gov> wrote:

<Rant>
It shouldn't be called 'self-absorption'. That's a misnomer, which seems to have come from a 1992
paper (Troger, et. al."Full correction of the self-absorption in soft-fluorescence extended x-ray-absorption fine structure", PRB 46,3283 (1992).
The effect was described and analyzed in a 1982 paper, which called it an "attenuation factor": Goulon, et. al. "On experimental attenuation factors of the amplitude
of the EXAFS oscillations in absorption, reflectivity and luminescence measurements", J. Physique 43, 539 (1982).
</Rant>
mam

Thanks!! I completely agree, though I wasn't aware of the historical precedence for the mistake. Using "over-absorption" is a far better term.

In X-ray fluorescence, "self-absorption" actually means the attenuation of fluorescence generated within a sample as it travels out of the sample. For over-absorption in XAFS, the issue is measuring absorption in fluorescence mode when the concentration of the absorbing element is not infinitesimal or when the sample thickness is not infinitesimal.

--Matt