Number of ionizations by heavy ion beam

[ORF]

Hello

If a heavy ion beam deposits a certain energy E in a volume V, how many ion-pairs will it produce in matter?

I think that the number of ion-pairs will be the energy divided by the (average) energy of ionization. A friend told me that a part of the deposited energy will cause also atomic excitations without ionizations, but we don’t know the fraction of energy for each process. I suppose that the fraction of excitations will be negligible compared to ionizations, but I’m not sure of that.

Thank for your time (with a reference to a book will be enough).

Greetings!

 

[mfb]

The fraction will depend on the target, the beam type and beam energy. You also get phonons and lattice displacements. There are programs that can simulate it.

 

[ORF]

Hello

Thank you for answering :)

I'm interested in the case of matter=liquid water and E=Bragg's peak.

On the other hand, you have aroused my curiosity: how can I find that programs?

Greetings!

 

[mfb]

Geant 4 is standard in high-energy physics, but I guess it works well for the Bragg peak, too.

No lattice displacements for liquids of course.

 

[e.bar.goum]

TRIM/SRIM will work well for this problem too, and is a little easier/quicker to run than Geant 4 for this kind of simple problem. http://www.srim.org/
Don't let the terrible website fool you, it's good stuff, and is pretty standard in medium/lowish energy beam physics.

 

[ORF]

Hello

I've taken a look to Geant4 and SRIM, and SRIM seems easier :)

Thank you for your help!

Greetings!