Discovery of new etchants for CR-39 detector

After reporting the excellent etching properties of molten Ba(OH)2·8H2O (Tahiri et al., 2003) as an etchant, we now report some more new and efficient etchants for CR-39 detector. CR-39 detectors were irradiated with fission fragments and alpha particles with a thin 252Cf source. The irradiated detectors were etched in a number of our newly introduced etching solutions as well as in conventionally used 6 M NaOH at 70 °C. The newly prepared etching solutions included NaOH/ethanol and NaOH/1-propanol. Processing conditions were optimized for these etchants. From fission and alpha track diameters, bulk etching velocity (VB), track etching velocity (VT), etching efficiency (η) and their activation energies were determined and compared with that obtained for 6 M NaOH at 70 °C.