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We present a X-ray training course for students. The course covers fundamental properties of synchrotron radiation and basic techniques like scattering and absorption. We prepared ten experiments together with a tutorial. The whole course takes about a week. A first student group from the University of Copenhagen passed the course in June 2009. The experiments were performed at the optics beamline of the Swiss Light Source which can be part-time allocated for training purposes. Two experiments are described in more detail: scattering from a hanging drop of water turning into ice and measurement of the power of a pink synchrotron beam using a simple calorimeter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We quantify the pile-up of X-ray photons in a single-photon-counting detector with finite dead-time when subject to an intense synchrotron beam of non-Poisson distributed photons. The pile-up leads to a non-linearity between the registered count-rate and the true photon-rate when a single-channel analyzer is employed and we show that the phenomenon can be described by use of a simple statistical model. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]