Study on the Lateral Scattering of High‐Energy Heavy Ions Penetrating through Solids

Abstract

The lateral scattering of ions in solids can induce beam broadening and range uncertainty in the application of high‐energy heavy ions to cancer treatment, ion beam imaging, and nanofabrication. Herein, using membranes of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyimide (PI), and diallyl glycol carbonates (CR‐39) of 25 μm–1.6 mm as nuclear track detectors, the lateral scattering of heavy ions with energy of 5.5–80.5 MeV u−1 Kr and C beams in solids are measured. The linear functional relationship between experimental and stopping and range of ions in matter (SRIM)‐simulated lateral scattering in these solid samples is established with determination coefficients R2 of 0.9979, through which the lateral scattering of ion penetrating through solids obtained from experiments can be reliably evaluated by the SRIM simulation results. The results also demonstrated that the resolution of the single ion localization system is better than 300 nm with the lateral scattering as the main limitation.