Measurements of electronic stopping power of swift heavy ions

High-precision measurement of heavy ion stopping power is becoming increasingly important, as stopping power is a critical parameter in a multitude of applications. Recent experimental approaches are reviewed with a focus on an analysis procedure that employs time of flight spectrometry to determine energy loss using standard elastic recoil detection analysis geometry. This procedure eliminates the calibration problem for Si detectors when used with heavy ions and, therefore, improves the accuracy associated with simultaneous measurements of the electronic stopping powers of a continuous energy spectrum. This approach is demonstrated by measuring the stopping powers of a number of heavy ions in amorphous targets over a continuous range of energies with an absolute uncertainty of less than 3%. The results exhibit good agreement with limited existing data but indicate some deviations from the predicted theoretical values.