Low Energy Experimental Elastic Cross Sections for Medical Physics Application

Elastic cross sections for electron energies below 10 MeV are fundamental quantities needed in treatment planning systems used at hospitals and health facilities. To date, there is very little if not no data within that energy regime. In collaboration with the high current, high energy resolution continuous electron beam of the Department of Energy's Jefferson Lab accelerator, we have performed a first stage of dedicated experiments with energies of 100-150 keV to collect data for this type of reactions. The targets used were gold, copper and silver. A Mott scattering chamber was used to detect the outgoing electrons. We will present the first results of this program that aims at performing a wide range of measurements including the use of polarization data for spin studies.