Range and etching behaviour of swift heavy ions in polymers

Abstract

Aliphatic (CR-39) and aromatic (Lexan polycarbonate) polymers have been irradiated with a variety of heavy ions such as 58Ni, 93Nb, 132Xe, 139La, 197Au, 208Pb, 209Bi, and 238U having energy ranges of 5.60–8.00 MeV/n in order to study the range and etching kinetics of heavy ion tracks. The ion fluence (range ∼104–105 ions/cm2) was kept low to avoid the overlapping of etched tracks. The measured values of maximum etched track length were corrected due to bulk etching and over etching to obtain the actual range. The experimental results of range profiles were compared with those obtained by the most used procedures employed in obtaining range and stopping power. The range values of present ions have been computed using the semiempirical codes (SRIM-98, SRIM-2003.26, and LISE++:0-[Hub90]) in order to check their accuracy. The merits and demerits of the adopted formulations have been highlighted in the present work. It is observed that the range of heavy ions is greater in aromatic polymers (Lexan polycarbonate) as compared to the aliphatic polymers (CR-39) irradiated with similar ions having same incident energies. The SRIM-98 and SRIM2003.26 codes don’t show any significant trend in deviations, however, LISE++:0-[Hub90] code provides overall good agreement with the experimental values. The ratio of track etch rate (along projectile trajectory) to the bulk etch rate has also been studied as a function of energy loss of heavy ions in these polymers.