X-Ray Spectroscopy

This chapter provides a brief tour through various spectroscopic techniques that employ synchrotron radiation in the X-ray region. Specifically, X-ray absorption, X-ray emission, and extended X-ray absorption fine structure are described. For each technique the experiment and its principal information is briefly described and illustrated with examples from the literature. In the second part of the chapter, the calculation of X-ray spectra on the basis of density functional theory is described. The challenges met in the theoretical description of core-level spectra are discussed. The presently achievable agreement between theory and experiment is illustrated with recent examples from the literature.