Selected etching and annealing properties of Brazilian quartz crystals for solid state track recorder applications

The etching and annealing properties of Brazilian quartz crystals are under investigation to determine their suitability for use as solid state track recorders (SSTR) and damage monitors in nuclear reactor environments, where temperatures and neutron fluences are high. Observer objectivity in counting fission tracks has been established at the 1 to 2% level, and a method of standardizing chemical etching from one sample of quartz to another has been found. A method has also been found to make corrections for track loss due to thermal annealing in terms of the effect of the annealing on the track size in the direction of maximum bulk etch rate parallel to the 100 plane, provided the fractional track loss does not exceed approximately 40%. (author)