Ion Tracks in Polymers

Abstract

Ion tracks were discovered by Young in 1958 [1], as he examined etch pits in fission-fragment-irradiated LiF by means of scanning electron microscopy. In 1959, Silk and Barnes [2] observed latent fission-fragment tracks in mica in the transmission electron microscope. These discoveries prompted the development of research on ion tracks until now, including track-etching techniques for particle detection and identification, and their use in several areas of science and technology such as geochronology and radiation dosimetry [3, 4]. In these applications, mostly natural minerals and synthetic polymers have served as ion-track detectors. At the same time, inorganic and polymeric track membranes, produced by ion irradiation and subsequent etching, have found applications in microfiltration [5] and gas-separation [6] technologies. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that track etching can be useful in lithography [7], and that microcomponents for electronic and mechanical devices can be fabricated by track replications [8–10]. Some of these applications will be reviewed in Vol. II of this book.KeywordsCoulomb ExplosionTrack StructureLatent TrackThermal SpikeTrack RadiusThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.