Physical and chemical response of 70 MeV carbon ion irradiated polyether sulphone polymer

Polyether sulphone (PES) foils were irradiated under vacuum with 70 MeV C5+ ions to the fluences of 9.3 × 1011, 9.3 × 1012 and 1.2 × 1013 ions cm−2. Ion induced optical, chemical and structural modifications were studied by ultraviolet, visible (UV–Vis) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffractometer. PES suffers degradation under irradiation, UV–Vis data show the increase of optical absorbance and the shift of absorption edge from the UV towards visible with the increase of the fluences, attributing to the formation of conjugated system of bonds. The intensity of the infrared bands, characteristics of different chemical functional groups is found to decrease with swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation. Significant loss of crystallinity was observed at higher fluences.