Study of heavy ion tracks in soda glass

Abstract

The pre-annealed and pre-etched samples of a soda glass detector are irradiated to 50Ti, 56Fe and 129Xe beams of energy 4.9 MeV/N, 5.1 MeV/N and 0.9 MeV/N, respectively from the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research (JINR) Dubna (Moscow) USSR. These irradiated samples are etched in the new etchant (HF 48 vol.% + H2SO4 96 vol.% + H2O in the ratio of 6:1:18 with small amount of Zn) at 40°C. The etch pit diameter and track length are measured for different etching times. The energy loss and range of these ions in soda glass are also computed theoretically. By the comparison of total etchable track length with the theoretical range, the value of critical threshold for etchable tracks in soda glass is found to be (13.0 ± 1) MeV mg−1cm2.