Energy loss of swift H₃⁺-molecule ions in carbon foils

¹ Departament de Física Aplicada, Universitat d'Alacant, Apartat 99, E-03080 Alacant, Spain
² Departamento de Física, Universidad de Murcia - Apdo. 4021, E-30080 Murcia, Spain
³ Instituto Balseiro, Centro Atómico Bariloche - RA-8400 Bariloche, Argentina

Received: 20 March 1996
Accepted: 8 July 1996

Abstract

The energy loss of -molecule beams interacting with amorphous carbon targets has been calculated, both as a function of the target thickness and the projectile velocity. We have considered the spatial changes, due to Coulomb repulsion, of the initial molecular configuration after the ion enters the target and then used a dielectric formalism to evaluate the stopping power of the correlated protons. The ratio between the stopping power of the molecule and that of its constituents considered individually accounts for the vicinage effects and agrees reasonably well with available experimental data.