Das elektronische Bremsvermögen von Stickstoff und Sauerstoff für niederenergetische Protonen

The electronic stopping power of molecular oxygen and nitrogen for protons with energies between 1 keV and 30 keV has been measured using a differentially pumped stopping cell. Our results give a surprisingly good confirmation of the Lindhard-Scharff statistical theory which predicts a linear velocity dependence of the electronic stopping power at low projectile energies. Moreover our data are in fair agreement with earlier high energy (E ≧ 20 keV) measurements in other laboratories. The combination of the present measurements with theoretically calculated nuclear stopping powers yields an estimate of the atomic stopping power. This estimate leads to substantially lower atomic stopping powers at low energies compared to values derived from range measurements. This result may have interesting implications on auroral hydrogen emissions.