1. What are the components of an atom?
In order to get a thorough understanding of the physical properties of radiation and how x-rays are produced, a dental radiographer has to know the structure, characteristics, and interactions of atoms. Atoms are the basic particles that compose matter, matter is anything that occupies space and has mass. All atoms consist of the same subatomic particles: protons, electrons, and neutrons. The center of atom is called the nucleus, and it consists of neutrons and protons. Neutrons have no electrical charge, but their mass is about the same as of protons. Protons have a positive charge. The nucleus contains over 99.9% of the mass of the atom, but occupies little volume. The third particle type is electron. It has a negative charge and a tiny mass, and can be found in the orbitals, a probability distribution maps showing where the electrons are likely to be found. Electrons remain in the orbits due to the nature of electrostatic force, or attraction between the positive nucleus and the negative electron.
2. What is ionization? How does it occur? …show more content…
When electron is removed from electrically neutral atom, it becomes an ion. However, it takes energy to remove an electron from the atom thus overcome the electrostatic forces, and that energy is called ionization energy (Tro, 2015). Therefore, ionization is the formation of ions. It requires energy to remove an electron and the resultant product is an ion pair, where the atom becomes the positive ion, and the ejected electron is the negative ion. The energy can be acquired from a chemical reaction, high temperature, electrical discharge, particle collisions, or electromagnetic