An apparatus to study the energy and angular distributions of electron-bremsstrahlung photons from gaseous targets

An apparatus is developed to measure the energy- and angular distributions of bremsstrahlung generated from collisions of energetic electrons with isolated atoms and molecules. A considerable reduction of thick target bremsstrahlung (TTB) background produced by scattered electrons from the chamber wall is achieved. Details of the experimental setup with regard to design of its components, experimental technique, data acquisition and analysis etc. are given and discussed. The reliability and performance of the setup are demonstrated by obtaining some test results on angular- and energy distributions of bremsstrahlung produced in collisions of 4.0 keV electrons with free argon atoms. These results are compared with the theoretical predictions of the ordinary- and the polarization bremsstrahlung emissions. In this comparison, the experimental data for energy distributions of BS photons are found to be in reasonable agreement while they are found to have noticeable differences in shape of angular distributions. - Highlights: • Experimental setup is developed to study DDCS of electron-bremsstrahlung from gaseous targets. • TTB from scattering chamber's wall is reduced appreciably by using a teflon cylinder. • Shape of DDCS of bremsstrahlung compared with the theories shows a satisfactory match. • Angular distributions of bremsstrahlung show anisotropy but still affected by TTB background photons