The damage process induced by swift heavy ion in polycarbonate

To describe the damage process of polymer in the energetic heavy ion tracks by thermal spike model, polycarbonate (PC, Makrofol KG) foil stacks were irradiated with various swift heavy ions (1.158 GeV Fe-56, 1.755 GeV Xe-136 and 2.636 GeV U-238) in a very wide electronic stopping power range (from 1.9 to 17.1 keV/nm) and fluence range from 1 x 10(10) to 3 x 10(12) ions/cm(2). The amorphous processes and chemical degradation in the irradiated PC were studied by X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurements. By applying the saturated track model, the mean damage radii of tracks of the amorphous and alkyne formation process were obtained for Fe, Xe and U ion irradiation, respectively. The results were validated by the thermal spike model. The analysis of the irradiated PC films shows that the predictions of the thermal spike model of Szenes are basically in quantitative agreement with the experimental results. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.