Charge response of polyethylene terephthalate polymers (PET) to light and heavy nuclei

摘要

A particular brand of common polymer film has been found to have a high detection threshold value of Z/beta, when used as a solid state nuclear track detector to detect energetic ion beams. From the infra-red absorption spectrum the film was identified to be polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Elemental analysSU indicated the chemical formula of the polymer to be (C5H4O2)(n), which SU also the same as that for PET. The charge response of thSU PET detector to light nuclei viz O-16-ions has been studied using 53.6 MeV O-16-ions from IUAC, New Delhi, India, using the air gap between the flange of the beam pipe and the detector as the energy degrader. The charge response for thSU PET detector has also been studied for heavy nuclei viz U-238 using 11.1 MeV U-ion beam from GSI, Darmstadt, Germany, with aluminium foils of different thickness to degrade the incident energy to several values. The charge response parameter V-t/V-g has been plotted against the Z/beta of incident ions in the PET detector as pan of a program to calibrate thSU detector so that it can be used to identify rare cosmic ray events.