The second way x-rays are produced is result of the moving Cathode electron penetrating deep inside the glass atom — and hitting the the atom’s tiny nucleus.
They're not paying me anywhere near enough for this. But as an X-ray tech I just can't let the lunacy go on without at least trying to set the record straight. Every once in a while a sane person comes along and so this way at least there'll be something worth reading.
The only glass involved in the production of x-rays is the glass vacuum tube. Electrons generated by a filament (much like a light bulb) at the cathode end stream across the tube at high speed, because being electrons they are negative and strongly attracted to the positively charged anode end. The voltages involved are all in the kilovolts, typically 120kV for a chest x-ray, and the tube is a vacuum, so the electrons get going pretty damn fast.
At the anode end is a target. Both the target and the filament are made of tungsten, used because its high atomic number means it has a lot of electrons, which is really important as you will soon see. Its also metal, malleable, heat resistant, etc etc.
So electrons go streaming across the tube so fast they hit the tungsten at the other end with so much energy they start a whole chain of reactions, chiefly bremsstrahlung, German (since it was Germans who discovered this) for "braking". Much like the brakes on a race car get hot and glow red radiating braking energy, the tungsten gets hot and glows x-rays.
The reaction we are mainly concerned with here happens in the electron shell. Collision energy causes electrons in one shell to increase in energy to the next higher level shell. Think of it as pushing them into a higher orbit. But electrons in their shells balance protons in the nucleus, so this is an unstable situation. But to fall back where it "belongs" is a lower energy state and so to balance the equation the tungsten atom releases a photon. A very high energy photon we call an x-ray.
This is actually pretty basic 100 level physics. Okay I'm old, grade inflation, call it 200 level now. Whatever. Point is, you got a guy pretending to be a physicist, can't get it right even about something this basic.
And he's actually pretty good compared to the other one.
Oh, I'm always saying DYODD so....
https://www.radiologycafe.com/radiology-trainees/frcr-physics-notes/production-of-x-rayshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremsstrahlung 
