Nuclear stopping in transmission experiments

Abstract

Energy-loss spectra, mean and peak energy loss, and straggling due to elastic nuclear scattering have been studied theoretically as a function of target thickness and deflection angle of an initially monochromatic and well-collimated ion beam. The goal of this work has been to provide a generally valid scheme for nuclear-stopping corrections, allowing to determine electronic-stopping forces from energy-loss spectra measured in transmission geometry. Calculations have been based on the generalized Bothe–Landau theory of energy loss and multiple scattering. Our peak energy losses at zero emergence angle show close (∼10%) agreement with predictions of Fastrup et al. on the basis of the Bohr–Williams theory. However, predicted mean and peak energy losses are found to more sensitively depend on the underlying interatomic potential than unrestricted, i.e. angle-integrated mean or peak energy losses. Both elastic energy loss and multiple scattering are known to obey scaling laws involving only two combinations of the pertinent variables and atomic parameters. The dependence on deflection angle and foil thickness of mean and peak energy loss obeys a simple combination of these scaling laws. Comments are made on potential errors due to uncertainties in the nuclear-stopping correction applied in the literature with specific reference to central papers in low-velocity stopping.