Background heat treatment studies in LR-115

Abstract

Abstract The effects of pre-irradiation thermal treatment at 100 °C and etching time on background track density (BGTD) and/or optical density of different batches of LR-115 were studied in this paper. The energy range and efficiency for the registration of alphas from 1 to 5 MeV were also determined in thermally treated and untreated films. The BGTD in batches stored longer was higher than that of newer batches, as basically expected and contrary to some reported data by others. The BGTD was reduced to about less than 25% of its original value after thermal treatment of 1 to 6 hours at 100 °C. This treatment, however, showed no significant effect on the 85±10% efficiency within registration energy range of 1.2 to 3.8 MeV, which were determined in this study. Nevertheless, this treatment reduced track diameter or track etching rate over the above energy range by about 20%. In conclusion, even one hour of thermal treatment at 100 °C can be efficient for BGTD annealing without any significant effect on track registration characteristics.