DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY FOR STUDYING ATOMIC-FIELD, BREMSSTRAHLUNG FROM KEV ELECTRONS INTERACTING WITH ATOMS AND MOLECULES

A dedicated working setup for studying the process of atomic-field bre msstrahlung and its dependence on various parameters for keV electrons incident on a solid or a gaseous target has been indigenously develop ed. The setup consists of a high vacuum scattering chamber attached wi th a rotatable X-ray photon detector, a home-built high voltage electr on gun with a replaceable tungsten-filament cathode, an isolated float ing high voltage system, high vacuum pumping units, various signal pro cessing electronic modules and an IBM PC/XT based 4K-multichannel anal yzer. A brief description of the facility is presented. The performanc e of the facility has been tested by recording the bremsstrahlung spec tra from 7.0 keV electrons on thin Ag, Au and 7.5 keV electrons on Hf targets; the corresponding spectra are presented and discussed. The gu n can operate in the range of 0-8.0 kV accelerating voltage in the pre sent configuration. Other feasible experiments that can be performed o n the setup are also briefly mentioned.