A study on the etching properties of electron-irradiated plastic track detectors

Abstract The variations of the bulk etching rate of electron-bombarded CN, CA, CAB, PC and PET sheets were studied as a function of electron dose and etching temperature. A conclusion was made that in the plastics under study a radiation-damaged region produced, either by an electron beam or a heavily ionizing nuclear particle display, to a certain extent, analogous etching properties. It was shown that the ratio of the etching rates of an electron-bombarded and an unirradiated sheet increases with the increase of the etching temperature for PC and PET, and with the decrease of etching temperature for CN and CA. Similar temperature dependences were obtained for the ratio of track– and bulk-etching rates (i.e. for registration sensitivity) if the plastic sheets were irradiated with heavier nuclear particles. Our results seem to confirm the assumption that the delta electrons may play an important role in the formation of primary nuclear particle tracks in plastic track detectors.