The 'Auger effect' describes the emission of an electron from an atom accompanying the filling of a inner electron shell vacancy produced by any means.
When an inner shell electron is removed from an atom, it is ionized and left in an excited energy state. Relaxation back to the ground state occurs rapidly via two processes:
Radiative processes, for example photoelectric effect that results in release of characteristic radiation
Non-radiative processes, referred to as Auger processes which result in the release of Auger electrons.
The inner shell vacancy is filled by an outer shell electron and this transition is accompanied by release of a characteristic energy equivalent to the difference in binding energies of the two electron shells involved. If the energy released is small, it is absorbed immediately with the ejection of a very low energy 'Auger' electron.
The probability of Auger electron production increases as the difference between the energy states of the shells decreases and in materials with low atomic numbers.
Like characteristic radiation, these Auger electrons are characteristic of the atom it is released from and is the principle behind Auger spectroscopy for chemical analysis.
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