Experimental stopping powers of Al, Mg, F and O ions in ZrO2 in the 0.1-0.6Â MeV/u energy range

The study of the stopping and range of heavy ions (Z > 3) in matter isdsc cfddc of both fundamental and practical interest as heavy ions find increasing usage in a wide range of ion beam based techniques. While semi-empirical formulations like the widely used SRIM code can predict the stopping powers of hydrogen and helium in many elemental and compound targets over a wide range of energies quite well, their predictive accuracy for heavy ions is not as good. This is mainly due to the lack of heavy ion experimental stopping power data on which such codes are based. We present results of measurements performed using a Time of Flight-Energy spectrometer to determine the stopping powers of O, F, Mg and Al ions in the oxide ceramic ZrO2 within the 0.1-0.6 MeV/u energy range. Possible SRIM correction (or correlation) factors for F, Mg and Al ions were extracted from quantitative comparisons of experimental and predicted stopping power values.