Laser Effect on the Activation Energies, Bulk Etch Rate and Track Etch Rate of CR-39 Polymeric Detector

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to find the effect of Nd: YAG laser of wavelength (532 nm), laser power 150 MW on the CR-39 polymer. Twenty three detectors were divided in to three sets. The first set (ten detectors) (post-exposed) was first exposed to alpha radiation from 241Am source at 3MeV and then treated in air with laser at different exposure time started from 10 minutes to 100 minutes with ten minutes differ between them (alpha + laser). For the second set (ten detectors) (pre-exposed), the process was reversed (laser +alpha) under the same conditions, for the last set (three detectors) (un-exposed to laser), used as a control set, was irradiated with an alpha source (241Am). Alpha track diameters, bulk etching velocity (VB), track etching velocity (VT), etching efficiency (η), etching ratio (V) were determined. The activation energies of bulk etch (EB) and track etch (ET) for unexposed, post- exposed and pre-exposed are found to be equal to 1.10, 0.92, 0.82 eV and 1.07, 0.86, 0.79 eV respectively.