Channelling of 2.4 GeV Ar ions in a germanium crystal

We present the first experimental channelling study with very energetic heavy ions. This work, performed with 60 MeV/u argon projectiles bombarding a 100 μm thick germanium crystal, aimed at determining the experimental conditions and techniques suitable to the observation of channelling effects with such projectiles. We show that the detection of forward emitted gamma-rays, neutrons and beam fragmentation products allows us to get the crystal aligned and to measure the channelling parameters, χmin and ψ1/2, which we find to be in reasonable agreement with theoretical estimates.