Stripping experiments in carbon foils with heavy ions in the energy range of 0.4-0.9 mev/a

Abstract
We studied the properties of heavy ions stripped by carbon foils. Ni, I and Au ions of 0.4 - 0.9 MeV/A were used to bombard foils of 5 - 200 μg/cm 2. In these measurements the ions were detected in a Browne-Buechner spectrometer. We measured the angular straggling of the ions and the energy straggling. We looked for the behaviour of the foils under impact of large beam densities (several μAp/cm2 on an area of 1-2 mm2). We observed the thickness variations of the foils during bombardment in a vacuum of ∼ 10-6 and 10-7 torr. We looked for the evolution of the energy straggling during exposure and conclude that this parameter does not change in an important way. This means that neither thickening nor sputtering affects the homogeneity of the foil. Results on the lifetime of the bombarded foils are reported