Low-energy multiple-Coulomb scattering in thick foils

Angular and energy distributions were taken using proton and α-particle beams of energies 2 to 10 MeV incident on a variety of thick foils. Foils were chosen from commonly used materials and to span the periodic table. Foil thicknesses were chosen which resulted in approximately 20-60% energy losses. The lower-energy experiments were done using the Brigham Young University 4-MeV Van de Graaff accelerator while the higher-energy experiments were performed using the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) tandem Van de Graaff. Angular distributions are characterized by the angles at which the distribution had dropped to the 1/e, 1/10, and 1/100 points of their initial values. Energy distributions are characterized by the mean energy and the width of the energy-straggling distribution of the emerging particle. Comparisons are made to the appropriate theories including the angular distribution theory of Nigam, Sundaresan, and Wu (NSW), and the straggling theory of Bethe. Improvements to the NSW method by using an effective energy and effective nuclear charge are discussed