When an
electron is removed from the
atom, leaving a empty place,
an electron from a higher energy level may fill the empty place, thereby releasing
energy.
For light atoms, this energy is most often transferred to another electron
which is subsequently ejected. This second electron is called an Auger electron,
after the French physicist Pierre Victor Auger (1899 - 1993).
Auger electrons have a discrete energy characteristic of the element in which they arise.
The Auger emission process was observed in 1922 by the Austrian physicist Elise Meitner
(1878 - 1968). The French physicist Pierre Victor Auger independently discovered it in 1923.
The effect is, therefore, sometimes called Auger-Meitner effect.
