CHANNELING OF 2.4 GEV AR IONS IN A GERMANIUM CRYSTAL

We present the first experimental channeling study with very energetic heavy ions. This work, performed with 60 Mev/u argon projectiles bombarding a 100 mu m thick germanium crystal, aimed at determining the experimental conditions and techniques suitable to the observation of channeling 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 channeling parameters, chi //m//i//n and psi // one-half , which we find to be in reasonable agreement with theoretical estimates.