Eur. Phys. J. D 60, 71-76 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2010-00034-7

Comparison of the directional characteristics of swift ion excitation for two small biomolecules: glycine and alanine

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
² Institute for Physics and Chemistry, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark, and Quantum Theory Project, Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

Corresponding author: ^a sabin@qtp.ufl.edu

Received: 7 July 2009
Revised: 24 November 2009
Published online: 16 February 2010

Abstract

The dependence of the damage caused to biomolecules by a swift ion beam on the target molecule's orientation with respect to the beam has implications for radiation protection and therapy. At the most basic level, it is first necessary to understand energy deposition in these systems. As the material constants describing energy deposition are the target mean excitation energies ( we report here the directional components of the mean excitation energies of the two simplest amino acids, glycine and alanine. It is found that the directional components of the mean excitation energies are similar in the two amino acids, and that both have a preferred direction for energy absorption.