X-ray

X-ray (or much less commonly, X-radiation) is a high-energy electromagnetic radiation. In many languages, it is referred to as Röntgen radiation, after the German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who discovered it in 1895 and named it X-radiation to signify an unknown type of radiation.

This article is about the nature, production, and uses of the radiation. For the method of imaging, see Radiography. For the medical specialty, see Radiology. For other uses, see X-ray (disambiguation). Not to be confused with X-wave or X-band.

X-ray wavelengths are shorter than those of UV rays and longer than those of gamma rays. There is no universally accepted, strict definition of the bounds of the X-ray band. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 nanometers to 10 picometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range of 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz (3×1016 Hz to 3×1019 Hz) and energies in the range of 100 eV to 100 keV, respectively.

X-rays are widely used in medical diagnostics (e.g., checking for broken bones) and material science (e.g., identification of some chemical elements and detecting weak points in construction materials).

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