The competition between IC and gamma decay is quantified in the form of the internal conversion coefficient which is defined as α α = e / γ γ where e is the rate of conversion electrons and γ γ is the rate of gamma-ray emission observed from a decaying nucleus. For example, in the decay of the excited state at 35 keV of Te (which is produced by the decay of I), 7% of decays emit energy as a gamma ray, while 93% release energy as conversion electrons. Therefore, this excited state of Te has an IC coefficient of α α = 93 / 7 = 13.3 .