Modification of polyethylene terephthalate under high-energy heavy ion irradiation

Polyethylene terephthalate films were irradiated with high-energy heavy ions to fluences ranging from 9 x 10(9) to 5.5 x 10(12) ions/cm(2). The radiation-induced changes in molecular and crystalline structures were investigated by the Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and the X-ray diffraction measurement. FTIR spectra measurements reveal that the material suffers serious degradation through bond breaking. The absorbance of the typical infrared bands decays exponentially with increase of ion fluence and the bond-disruption cross-section shows a sigmoid variation with the electronic energy loss. The semi-crystalline structure of the material is destroyed by the irradiation with processes that are electronic energy loss dependent. At lower electronic energy loss values the amorphization is closely related to the destruction of the trans-configuration of the ethylene glycol residue. At high electronic energy loss, however, other processes determine the amorphization. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.