Study of Microhardness and Electrical Properties of Proton Irradiated Polyether sulfone

Polyethersulfone (PES) films were irradiated with 3 MeV proton beams in the fluence range 1013-1015 ions/cm2. The irradiated samples were characterized by a Vickers' microhardness tester at a load of 100-1000 mN, and electrical properties in the frequency range 100 Hz to 1MHz by an LCR meter. It is observed that microhardness increases as fluence increases up to the fluence of 1014 ions/cm2 and decreases on further increase of the fluence. This may be attributed to the fact that a cross linking phenomenon dominates up to the fluence of 1014 ions/cm2. There is an exponential increase in conductivity and the effect of irradiation is significant at higher fluences. The dielectric constant/loss was found to change significantly due to irradiation. It has been found that dielectric response in both pristine and irradiated samples obey universal law is given by ε α fn-1.These results were corroborated with structural changes observed in FTIR spectra of pristine and irradiated samples