Elimination of self-absorption in fluorescence hard-x-ray absorption spectra

Fluorescence detection is a convenient way to measure x-ray absorption spec tra in situations where samples cannot be made in the required configuratio n. However, self-absorption effects cause considerable distortion of spectr a measured in fluorescence. We describe a straightforward procedure to corr ect for such distortion in the hard-x-ray region using the known energy dep endence of the x-ray absorption coefficients. This procedure is used to obt ain the vanadium K-edge spectrum of single crystal V2O3 and we demonstrate that self-absorption is properly corrected. This facilitates the use of flu orescence detection even in the hard-x-ray region.