Calibration of a Plasma Calorimeter

A monoenergetic beam of protons strike the calorimeter foils, causing the foils' temperature to increase.

The proton beam current is determined via Rutherford Scattering: A small fraction of the proton beam is deflected off the gold foil into a surface barrier detector. The beam current is extracted from measurements of the flux of protons into the surface barrier detector.

A voltage difference is applied between the deflector plates in order to deflect the proton beam to a particular calorimeter foil.