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International audience; The detailed study of single photon multiple ionization processes requires the detection in coincidence of all the electrons emitted from the same ionization event. The advent of magnetic bottle experiments made possible the development of this multi-electron coincidence spectroscopy. First we will briefly review the achievements of this technique. Then we will illustrate more specifically its high sensitivity taking as an example the decay by emission of three Auger electrons of 2p and 2s holes in argon. Our results show that the processes are completely different depending on the initial core hole: the three Auger electrons are emitted dominantly in a simultaneous path for the 2p case, but in cascade for the 2s one.

We present the main characteristics of the experimental set-up used to perform gas-phase RIXS studies in the tender X-ray range. A complete in-vacuum curved-crystal X-ray emission spectrometer in Johansson geometry has been built for a 2–6 keV energy range with sub natural line-width energy resolution. The spectrometer operates in a dispersive geometry, employing a relatively large X-ray source placed inside the Rowland circle and a position sensitive detection of diffracted X-rays. A short review of the most recent experimental applications is given focusing on RIXS studies on isolated atoms and molecules.

The effect of γ-radiation on a variety of model vitreous wasteforms applied to, or conceived for, immobilisation of UK intermediate and high level radioactive wastes was studied up to a dose of 8 MGy. It was determined that γ-irradiation up to this dose had no significant effect upon the mechanical properties of the wasteforms and there was no evidence of residual structural defects. FTIR and Raman spectroscopy showed no evidence of radiation directly affecting the silicate network of the glasses. The negligible impact of this γ-irradiation dose on the physical properties of the glass was attributed to the presence of multivalent ions, particularly Fe, and a mechanism by which the electron–hole pairs generated by γ-irradiation were annihilated by the Fe2+–Fe3+ redox mechanism. However, reduction of sulphur species in response to γ-radiation was demonstrated by S K-edge XANES and XES data.

We have measured the elemental concentrations in aerosols with a 2-h time resolution in two different types of working environment: a chemistry laboratory dealing with the processing of advanced nanoparticulate materials and a medium-sized machine workshop. Non-stop 10-day and 12-day samplings were performed at each location in order to determine the concentration trends during the non-working/working and weekday/weekend periods. Supplementary measurements of PM10 aerosols with a 2-day sample collection time were performed with a standard Gent PM10 sampler to compare the elemental concentrations with the time-averaged concentrations detected by the 2D step-sampler. The concentrations were determined a posteriori by analyzing the x-ray spectra of aerosol samples emitted after 3-MeV proton bombardment. The PM10 samples collected in the chemistry laboratory were additionally inspected by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) to determine the chemical compositions of the individual particles. In the workshop, a total PM10 mass sampling was performed simultaneously with a minute resolution to compare the signal with typical outdoor PM10 concentration levels. A factor analysis of the time-resolved dataset points to six and eight factors in the chemistry laboratory and the machine workshop, respectively. These factors describe most of the data variance, and their composition in terms of different elements can be related to specific indoor activities and conditions. We were able to demonstrate that the elemental concentration sampling with hourly resolution is an excellent tool for studying the indoor air pollution. While sampling the total PM10 mass concentration with a minute resolution may lack the potential to identify the emission sources in a “noisy” environment, the time averaging on a day time scale is too coarse to cope with the working dynamics, even if elemental sensitivity is an option.

We discuss general characteristics of the resonant X-ray scattering and briefly illustrate its applications in atomic, molecular and solid state physics by a few selected examples. The Ljubljana high resolution spectrometer set-up is presented, which was recently employed at ELETTRA and ESRF synchrotron beamlines to study X-ray emission of inner-shell excited states of xenon and argon, and of simple sulfur containing molecules and solid compounds.

We present an experimental study of L-MM resonant Auger spectra of argon after electron impact excitation. The electron spectra were measured at ten different electron impact energies between 442.6 eV and 461.7 eV. During (e, 2e) measurement the energy of the second electron was kept fixed at 209.6 eV, corresponding to the energy of one of the strongest resonant Auger transitions from the [2p3/23d] state. Except for the monopole excitations, the recorded spectral structures are explained on the basis of photon impact data.