title: Measurement of the energy dependence of X-ray-induced decomposition of potassium chlorate.
abstract: We report the first measurements of the X-ray induced decomposition of KClO3 as a function of energy in two experiments. KClO3 was pressurized to 3.5 GPa and irradiated with monochromatic synchrotron X-rays ranging in energy from 15 to 35 keV in 5 keV increments. A systematic increase in the decomposition rate as the energy was decreased was observed, which agrees with the 1/E(3) trend for the photoelectric process, except at the lowest energy studied. A second experiment was performed to access lower energies (10 and 12 keV) using a beryllium gasket; suggesting an apparent resonance near 15 keV or 0.83 Ǻ maximizing the chemical decomposition rate. A third experiment was performed using KIO3 to ascertain the anionic dependence of the decomposition rate, which was observed to be far slower than in KClO3, suggesting that the O-O distance is the critical factor in chemical reactions. These results will be important for more efficiently initiating chemical decomposition in materials using selected X-ray wavelengths that maximize decomposition to aid useful hard X-ray-induced chemistry and contribute understanding of the mechanism of X-ray-induced decomposition of the chlorates.
authors: High-Pressure Science and Engineering Center (HiPSEC) and Department of Physics, University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-4002, United States. pravica@physics.unlv.edu
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Pravica
authors: Ligang
authors: L
authors: Bai
authors: Daniel
authors: D
authors: Sneed
authors: Changyong
authors: C
authors: Park