The measured energy loss of high energy electrons in aluminum

Abstract

The energy distributions of electrons of about 54, 75 and 97 Mev have been measured before and after passing through aluminum absorbers of thicknesses ranging from 0.730 to 5.574 gm/cm2. The electrons were accelerated by the LINAC of the Naval Postgraduate School. The most probable energy losses agree with the theory ofBlunck andWestphal for all thicknesses; the half widths of the distributions agree with theory except for large thicknesses, where they exceed the theoretical values. These results are in contrast to those ofBreuer, which indicate systematically large half widths and most probable energy losses which are greater than theory for thicknesses greater than about 2 gm/cm2. Since our data agree with those ofBreuer, the difference occurs in the treatment of the theory.