Radiographic characteristics of CR-39 detector

Two parameters, signal-exposure and spatial resolution characteristics of radiography with CR-39 detector were investigated. The signal exposure characteristic was quoted in terms of optical density versus exposure, which was defined as the product of the average visible track area and track density. A formula for optical density was derived and was found to be in good agreement with the experimental results. The region of linear response of optical density was found to be between exposure values of approximately 0.5 to 5. The spatial resolution was assessed in terms of the unsharpness of the image of a knife-edge test object. The edge-spread function and corresponding image unsharpness were calculated and the results were compared with experiment. Excellent agreement between the theoretical prediction and the experimental data was found. With the experimental technique developed an image unsharpness smaller than the range of the 10B(n,α)7Li reaction products was achieved without loss in registration efficiency. (author)