K-shell X-ray production cross sections in Ti by 0.3–1.0 MeV/u 12C and 28Si ions for heavy ion PIXE

An inhibiting factor in the implementation of heavy ion PIXE is that heavy ion X-ray production cross sections are not well known for many materials. This contribution reports on work carried out at iThemba LABS to measure X-ray production cross-sections in Ti thin films irradiated with 12C and 28Si ions within the 0.3–1.0 MeV/u energy range. Experimental data are compared to predictions by the PWBA, SCA-UA and ECPSSR theories. For the C–Ti asymmetric collision, ECPSSR theory describes experiment fairly well, but fails for the nearly symmetric Si–Ti collision, even after correction for multiple ionisation effects. The SCA-UA calculations tend to agree with data only at low (<0.5 MeV/u) energies for the lighter 12C incident ions, but like ECPSSR, fail in the case of 28Si projectiles. The PWBA predictions grossly overestimate experiment in both cases.