Talk:X-ray absorption near edge structure

I have been reading over the current debate about the terms NEXAFS and XANES, and which one should be used by the scientific community. Both terms are, as of today, widely used, however XANES is the one that is definetely the most well known and adopted in scientific publications. As a member of the condensed matter community, I can say without a doubt that XANES is the term familiar to everyone. I have conducted an informal poll of my colleagues, and, while they all seem to be familiar with the term XANES, only a few claim that they know the term NEXAFS. Also, I feel that history should play a role in this debate. The XANES term was first used in publication, so it might have more right to be preserved. If we do need to choose among one of the two terms I would vote for XANES on the basis of general familiarity and historical precedent. Also, NEXAFS is a more specialized term than XANES, and therefore, if any one of the two has to be merged, this should be NEXAFS.
 * Do you therefore support a merger with one final article to be called XANES?  That would be fine with me. Alison Chaiken 18:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

I think NEXAFS and XANES have the same meaning, but currently used by two different groups of people, so we'd better to keep them as two separate items here. Usually NEXAFS is used by people working on K edge spectra of low atomic number elements (such as C/N/O etc) and the L edge of first row transition metals at low energy (<1keV), however, XANES is used by people working on K edge of first row transition metals and L edge of larger atomic number elements. XANES is usually in combination with EXAFS, providing some detailed but qualitative information in addition to the EXAFS spectra. Also usually we do not need to worry about higher harmonic oscillation of other elements when looking at XANES spectra. NEXAFS, on the contrary, does not have a corresponding EXAFS spectra at most cases, also the 2nd harmonic oscillation usually plays an important role for NEXAFS spectra. People used to change the bias voltage to eliminate the higher harmonic oscillation caused by other elements. I am working on both NEXAFS and XANES and I would use the word "NEXAFS" when I am dealing with Boron, Carbon, Oxygen and Nitrogen, while use "XANES" when I am dealing with Cobalt, Nickel, Platinum, Silver etc. --Wxmtsinghua (talk) 16:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merge with NEXAFS
Both "NEXAFS" and "XANES" are terms used by the physics community to describe the experimental method under discussion here. Both names are equally valid. However, I created a quite substantial NEXAFS article before User:Bianconi created the XANES one, undoubtedly in an effort to publicize his/her own work. A whois lookup of the machine 141.108.20.26 shows that it is in Italy and "Bianconi" is an Italian name, so I believe that this article is primarily an attempt at self promotion. User:141.108.20.26 has removed links to the NEXAFS article from the EXAFS article and replaced them with links to the less substantial XANES one for no apparent reason. I'd like to hear others' opinion on whether XANES should be merged into NEXAFS or whether there should just be a redirect. Alison Chaiken 19:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC) --- In think that the "XANES" acronym should remain on wikipedia. XANES is used by a scientific community (including Biology, chemistry and material science) larger than the acronym "NEXAFS". Let us consider some facts easy to be verified by anyone:
 * In the AIP Journals (Physical Review, Phys. Rev. Lett., Rev. Mod. Physics) there are today 165 papers using XANES in their titles.
 * In the AIP Journals (Physical Review, Phys. Rev. Lett., Rev. Mod. Physics) there are today 55 papers using NEXFAS in their titles.

Historically the first paper on XANES appeared in 1980. The first paper on NEXAFS appeared three years later in 1983. In the widely used textbook "X-ray Absorption" by Konisberger and Prinz, the x-ray absorption near edge structure is called XANES. 87.3.31.93 21:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

NEXAFS is an acronym used only sometime in organic chemistry and surface science. Bianconi is right, NEXAFS should merge into XANES or NEXAFS should remain as a specialized term in organic chemistry and surface science (87.3.135.106 04:44, 25 April 2006 (UTC))

The two acronyms should be interchangeable but over the years NEXAFS has become terminology for only “low Z” elements -C, N, O... while XANES is widely used for all chemical elements. Therefore I also agree with Bianconi.(137.205.164.93 12:36, 27 April 2006 (UTC))

Due to the wide use of the acronym XANES in many research fields such as biology and solid state physics, I agree with the user Bianconi that XANES should not be merged into NEXAFS.The two acronyms should remain as separate entries in Wikipedia. (70.153.97.234 08:31, 29 April 2006 (UTC))

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The XANES acronym for "X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy" is very important in material science and it concerns the very strong (not only the subtle fine structure as in NEXAFS) absorption peaks that are currently used in material science. Therefore it should not merge into the NEXAFS entry and it deserves to be developed.

Identities of user(s)
May I politely ask, , and , who have all edited this article or its talk page, which if any of them are the same user? I ask in particular because 87.3.135.106 seems to believe that 87.3.31.93 is the same person as Bianconi, and the two IP addresses are also rather similar (perhaps a colleague?). Editing from different usernames is not prohibited on Wikipedia (see Sockpuppets), but it can muddy the waters during content disputes like the present one. Thanks. -- SCZenz 07:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Professor Bianconi brought this discussion to my attention so this is not unsolicited, but I'm commenting on this because I believe he is correct. If only for historical reasons XANES and its most typical usage as applying to higher energy edges of higher Z elements should have a separate entry from NEXAFS. However, I believe there is a scientific issue as well. At lower energies it is usually much easier to locate the ionization energy and therefore unambiguously differentiate between transitions to bound vs. quasi-bound states. Despite the ostensible maturity of the field, this is not true at higher energies, I continue to have heated discussions with not only referees but even my collaborators over whether the peak found in transition metal and actinide K and L edges is the s-p/p-d transition and its intensity reflects unoccupied states - which is undoubtedly the case for Pt - or whether it is above the ionization energy and it mostly the first EXAFS oscillation - which I think it is in actinides where the energy of the peak shifts so dramatically with valence. So to me at least the XANES acronym is useful in that it refers specifically to absorption edge structure that is difficult to assign but still useful in interpreting spectra.


 * Hi Steve.   Note that when I proposed merging t into NEXAFS, the XANES article was only a few lines long.     It's fine with me if NEXAFS (illustrated and largely written by me) is merged instead into XANES.    I just think it would be silly for there to be two separate articles.    A single article that discusses the questions you raise would be much more useful to people.    Don't just comment here, go ahead and make changes!  Alison Chaiken 05:14, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikifying this article
See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics. Alison Chaiken 14:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

___________

I understand from the above discussion that finally the community agree to develop the XANES page to make it nice article and to merge NEXAFS page into the XANES page.(Marc) ______________

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 10:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Merge
Of course both acronyms are used, but that can easily be remedied by making NEXAFS a redirect to XANES. I have put the merge templates (back?) on both pages, particularly in view of the above discussion Jcwf (talk) 14:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm against the merging. Please refer to my words above. --Wxmtsinghua (talk) 16:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

"NEXAFS" = "EXAFS"?
I am puzzled by this assertion:


 * NEXAFS also at times used the abbreviation EXAFS.

To the vast majority to those engaged in the field of x-ray absorption spectroscopy, EXAFS refers to the fine structure well above the edge, while NEXAFS or XANES refers to structure near the edge. If there is some unusual use of EXAFS to be a synonym for NEXAFS, I am unaware of it. In any case, this could cause great confusion for someone new to the subject, and should at least be edited to clarify that NEXAFS and EXAFS are usually not considered synonymous.--SarahLawrence Scott (talk) 20:20, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I am in fact someone new to the subject, I was somewhat thrown off by the similarity of NEXAFS and EXAFS, but more so I was confused as to what the differences between EXAFS and XANES were. It is clear from the beginning of the article that these are two separate techniques, but I had difficulty finding a description of the differences in the article. Only by reading this talk page (i.e. "..EXAFS refers to the fine structure well above the edge, while NEXAFS or XANES refers to structure near the edge." did I understand the difference. Mykeknauff (talk) 13:46, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I have uploaded a modified version of the diagram describing the theory. If it is inaccurate or the older version is preferred please revert it. I'd be grateful if you could let me know what was wrong with it if you do that :) Thanks, GoddersUK (talk) 23:39, 7 March 2012 (UTC)GoddersUK (talk) 23:42, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

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