Anisotropic etching and annealing of fission tracks in quartz.

Abstract

The studies of each pit formation of fission fragment tracks in natural quartz are carried out using KOH, as the track etchant. The influence of crystallographic structure on the bulk etch rate, VG, the track etch rate VT, and the etching efficiency, η is reported. The value of fission track age is found to be the same for all the planes. It is observed that the annealing augments anisotropy of track revelation in the crystal. The activation energy, Ea, is found to vary with the crystallographic orientation.