Stopping power of fission fragments of 252Cf in argon: A comparison between experiments and simulation with the SRIM code

The stopping power of ions in gases can be computed by codes, such as SRIM, based on experimental data and theories. However, no available code has been tailored to deal with the specific properties of fission fragments when interacting with gas. This is, however, of key interest for fission chambers, in which the electric signal results from the ionisation of a gas by fission fragments. We compared experimental data available in the literature with those computed with SRIM. In spite of a underestimation of the energy loss per unit length, SRIM gives qualitatively good results, thus is an useful tool to study the stopping power of fission fragments in gases. However, getting more comprehensive experimental data should be beneficial.