Design of electron-atom collision set-up and measurements of ionization cross section

In this research, the set-up in electron collision (eCOL) laboratory consists of electron gun, target gas atom, two analyzers to detect the ejected and scattered electrons and a Faraday Cup (FC) to measure the current of the electron beam. A second and smaller faraday cup is used to remove the limitation of measurable angle.The electron beam that is produced by electron gun is placed in vacuum chamber and it is guided to interaction region by electrostatic fields. The electron beam crosses by the target gas at the interaction region in the perpendicular plane. The scattered and ejected electrons are detected by electron energy analyzers after the collision.The interaction between atom and an elementary particle is defined by cross section measurements in atomic physics. Four types of cross section can be described in electron impact ionization of an atom. These are: i) Total ionization cross section, ii) single differential cross section (SDCS) iii) Double differential cross section (DDCS) and iv) Triple differential cross section measurements. In this thesis, elastic, inelastic and double differential cross section measurements of He atom are investigated between 55-300 eV electron energies in the set-up at eCOL laboratory.