orbitals or d) low energy EXAFS oscillations. In the seventies, using synchrotron radiation in Frascati and Stanford synchrotron sources, it was experimentally shown that the features in this energy region are due to multiple scattering resonances of the photoelectron in a nanocluster of variable size. Antonio Bianconi in 1980 invented the acronym XANES to indicate the spectral region dominated by multiple scattering resonances of the photoelectron in the soft x-ray range and in the hard X-ray range. In the XANES energy range the kinetic energy of the photoelectron in the final state is between few eV and 50-100 eV. In this regime the photoelectron has a strong scattering amplitude by neighboring atoms in molecules and condensed matter, its wavelength is larger than interatomic distances, its mean free path could be smaller than one nanometer and finally the lifetime of the excited state is in the order of femtoseconds. The XANES spectral features are described by full multiple scattering theory proposed in the early seventies. Therefore, the key step for XANES interpretation is the determination of the size of the atomic cluster of neighbor atoms, where the final states are confined, which could range from 0.2 nm to 2 nm in different systems. This energy region has been called later (in 1982) also near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS), which is synonymous with XANES. During more than 20 years the XANES interpretation has been object of discussion but recently there is agreement that the final states are "multiple scattering resonances" and many body final states play an important role. Intermediate region There is an intermediate region between the XANES and EXAFS regions where low n-body distribution functions play a key role. Extended X-ray absorption fine structure The oscillatory structure extending for hundreds of electron volts past the edges was called the “Kronig structure” after the scientist, Ralph Kronig, who assigned this structure in the high energy range ( i.e., for a kinetic energy range - larger than 100 eV - of the phoelectron in the weak scattering regime) to the single scattering of the excited photoelectron by neighbouring atoms in molecules and condensed matter. This regime was called EXAFS in 1971 by Sayers, Stern and Lytle. and it developed only after the use of intense synchrotron radiation sources. Applications of x-ray absorption spectroscopy X-ray absorption edge spectroscopy corresponds to the transition from a core-level to an unoccupied orbital or band and