Enhancement of Luminescence of PET Films after Swift Heavy Ion Irradiation

Abstract

The novelty of the study is that the ordering that occurs in a PET film under the action of SHI irradiation manifests itself as an increase in the integral intensity of intrinsic luminescence. The Urbach behaviour of the red shift of the absorption edge is used as a baseline for further analysis of experimental optical transmission spectra of PET films irradiated by swift heavy ions (SHI) previously published by the authors. Negative deviations of the experimental spectra from the Urbach baseline in the visible and UV parts of the spectrum are attributed to enhanced by SHI irradiation intrinsic luminescence. The observed dependence of the integral intensity of luminescence of irradiated PET films on the SHI fluence and ion charge provides further confirmation of the presence of SHI-induced ordering of the molecular structure in SHI latent tracks.

Study of the Sensitivity Limit of Detection of α-Particles by Polymer Film Detectors LR-115 Type 2 Using X-ray Diffraction and UV-Vis Spectroscopic Methods

“…Moreover, interest in this topic is due not only to the search for fundamental aspects of the relationship between structural changes caused by the interaction of charged particles with the molecular structure of polymers, but also to the search for new aspects of the practical application of irradiated films. For example, in a series of works [23][24][25][35][36][37], a detailed description is given of the connection between structural changes caused by irradiation with heavy ions in polymer films and the optical properties of polymers, including changes in the fundamental absorption edge, electron density, transmission, etc. At the same time, the authors of these works demonstrated that the variation of irradiation conditions results into the formation of anisotropic changes in the electron density in latent tracks, which is in good agreement with the data of [26].…”