Opto-chemical response of CR-39 and polystyrene to swift heavy ion irradiation

The samples of CR-39 and polystyrene (PS) polymers have been irradiated with 64Cu9+ (120 MeV) and 12C5+ (70 MeV) ion beams having fluence ranging from 1 × 1011 to 1 × 1013 ions/cm−2. UV spectra of irradiated samples reveal that the optical band gap decreases from 5.50 to 2.75 eV in CR-39 and from 4.36 to 1.73 eV in PS. The correlation between optical band gap and the number of carbon atoms in a cluster with modified Tauc’s equation has been discussed in case of CR-39. FTIR spectra reveal that there is the formation of hydroxyl, alkene, alkyne and carboxylic groups in the Cu-ion irradiated PS. In CR-39, changes in the intensity of the bands on irradiation relative to pristine samples without appearance of any new band have been observed and discussed.