Sensitivity study of CR-39 plastic track detectors

Abstract

Abstract With the goal of increasing the sensitivity of CR-39 plastic track-recording detectors, samples of plastics that contain antioxidant additives were made by Tastrak (Bristol, U.K.) and evaluated by us with a Bevalac exposure at the University of California, Berkeley. The results show that CR-39 containing 100 ppm Naugard additives but no plasticizer DOS has higher sensitivity than standard CR-39 plastic in the tested range of Z eff /β = 7–12. However, no nuclei with Z ≦5 were recorded in any of the samples, indicating that the detection threshold of the calibrated CR-39 samples ( Z eff /β) threshold was ≧6.1.