Study of track registration response of makrofol-KL to 40Ar and 136Xe ions

Abstract

Makrofol-KL polycarbonate nuclear track detector samples were irradiated with 40Ar (14.9 Mev/n) and 136Xe (11.56 MeV/n) at an angle of 45° from UNILAC, GSI Darmstadt, Germany to obtain track registration parameters, viz. variation of track length with etching temperature (55°, 60°, 65° and 70°C) using 6.25 N KOH as etchant, bulk and track etch rates ( V G and V T) and their respective activation energies ( E G and E T). The results show that the sensitivity decreases towards higher etching temperatures while the cone angle increases. The variation of etching rates with temperature is found to be exponential and follows the Arrhenius equation. The activation energies for bulk etching are found to be 1.18±0.08 eV and for track etching 0.66±0.04 eV and 0.71±0.04 eV for 40Ar and 136Xe ions in Makrofol-KL detector, respectively. The maximum etchable track length along with the theoretical values of maximum etchable track length and range of these ions were also obtained and were found comparable with the theoretical values within the experimental errors.