Influence of uranium enrichment on the etching rate of polycarbonate fission track detector containing uranium particles

✍ Scribed by C.G. Lee; K. Iguchi; F. Esaka; M. Magara; S. Sakurai; K. Watanabe; S. Usuda

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 216 KB
• Volume: 245
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-583X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2005.11.002

✦ Synopsis

The etching rates of fission track detectors made of polycarbonate containing uranium particles were measured after thermal neutron irradiation with fluence of 8 • 10 14 n/cm 2 , in order to study the influence of uranium enrichment on the etching rate that was calculated from the weight loss by etching. There is a strong correlation between the etching rate of detector and the enrichment E of uranium particle: the former increases as the latter increases. Particularly, the etching rate per particle was proportional to E 2/3 rather than E 1 , which is probably due to the overlapping of fission tracks. The etching behaviors of detector revealed that the existence of two different etching rate regions, a nonlinear region in the beginning of etching process and a subsequent constant region, which was explained as the opening of fission tracks and the broadening of opened tracks, respectively. The enrichment dependence of bulk etch of a detector was qualitatively the same in two different etching rate regions.