Response of soda glass detectors to 238U and 56Fe ions

In the present work, a set of soda glass slides in the form of a stack has been exposed normally, as well as at an angle of 60° w.r.t. the detector surface, to ²³⁸U and ⁵⁶Fe ions with energies 144 and 199 MeV/n respectively from the heavy ion accelerator (BEVALAC) at Berkeley, U.S.A. After opening the stack, the slides have been etched under optimum etching conditions. The variations of track diameter and other parameters with the etching time have been studied and also the total range for these ions has been determined. Theoretical calculations of stopping power and range for these ions, as well for some other heavy ions in different media have been made using the formulations of Benton and Henke, Mukherjee and Nayak, Ziegler and Manoyan and Hubert et al. Finally a comparison has been made with the experimental results.