Water window

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The water window is a spectral range of soft X-rays between about 2.3 and 4.4 nanometers, in which the soft X-rays have a relatively high penetration depth into water (between 1 and 10 µm), while carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and silicon in this range absorb significantly more. This leads to a high contrast between water and organic molecules; adjacent longer and shorter wavelengths do not have this property.

There are several wavelength ranges of electromagnetic radiation that are not absorbed by water, which could also be called “water windows” (including visible light ). The water window is particularly interesting from a technical point of view because it is an area of ​​particularly short-wave radiation, i.e. it allows very small structures to be shown ( X-ray microscopy ).

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