The physicist Arthur Holly Compton used the quantum theory to explain how the scattering of light quantum by electrons takes place, a phenomenon known as Compton effect. An interesting feature of the Compton effect occurs in a frontal collision between the photon and the electron with the photon being backscattered, in which case the energy of the scattered photon is maximum and can be even of the order of magnitude of the energy of the incident electron. Photon beams produced by inverse Compton scattering of laser light by relativistic electrons have scientific, technological, industrial and medical applications.
Compton effect; X and gamma rays scattering
