MBH as an etching solution for fast detection of alpha particles and fission fragments using CR-39 detector

Abstract

The latent tracks formed on CR-39 solid state nuclear track detector on exposure of alpha particles and fission fragments (FF) emitted from collimated ²⁴¹Am and ²⁵²Cf sources were developed by a chemical etching method. In this study, we use molten hydrated barium hydroxide (MBH) as an etching solution to register FF. In this experiment, one set of detectors were exposed to FF from ²⁵²Cf radioactive source with activity (1.84 μCi). The second set of detectors has been exposed to alpha particles with different energies ranging from 1 to 5 MeV. The irradiated samples were etched with MBH at different temperatures (78 °C, 80 °C, 85 °C, and 90 °C) for different periods ranging from 2 to 20 min. We calculated etching parameters including bulk etching rate, track etching rate, sensitivity, etching efficiency, and activation energy (E_B and E_T). The main advantage of the current method lies in its ability to achieve efficient etching of CR-39 detectors at a temperature of 90 °C with an etch rate (V_B) of 14.67 μm/h and an etching duration of 16 min. Furthermore, we identified the optimal etching conditions for detecting alpha particles in CR-39 detectors, aiming for short etching durations.