Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
1681307 | Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms | 2014 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
Choice of chemical etchant and temperature are pivotal to the successful employment of organic/polymeric solid state nuclear track detectors for determining the fluence of charged particles like protons, alpha and other heavy ions. Poly(diethyleneglycol-bis-(allylcarbonate)) (CR-39) is one of the most sensitive detectors for monitoring the alpha particles but suffers from the drawback of long etching period. An attempt has been made in the present work to investigate a mixture, 20% (v/v) tetraethylammonium hydroxide (40%) - 80% NaOH (6 M) (TEAH-NaOH) at varying temperature as an alternate etchant. It was found that bulk/track etch rate increased and as a consequence etching time decreased significantly (about 10 times) when the mixture was used at 80 °C. Mechanistically, improved efficiency of TEAH-NaOH was attributed to its larger organophilicity and lower etching activation energy as compared to NaOH.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Materials Science
Surfaces, Coatings and Films
Authors
Pranav M. Joshirao, Chirag K. Vyas, K.P. Eappen, Jae Won Shin, Seung-Woo Hong, Vijay K. Manchanda,