Eectronic stopping of slow molecular ions in solids.

Abstract

Energy loss measurements were made for 12-5—130 keV per nucleon H + and H+ on carbon and aluminium foils. For incident H+2 , both H+ and H+2 are transmitted; the energy per nucleon of the latter being lower than that of transmitted H+, at low energies. The theory shows this is due to interference effects in the binary excitation of target electrons by the spatially correlated protons and suggests that transmitted H+ results from di-protons travelling inside the solid with the internuclear axis aligned ciose to the direction of motion.