Abstract:
The thermal annealing behavior of alpha and fission fragment tracks, following exposure pre- and postannealing,
in a high polymer material of poly allyl diglycol carbonate (PADC), a form of CR-39, has been
investigated as a function of temperature and time. Isothermal and isochronal annealing experiments
were carried out on CR-39 polymeric detectors exposed to a 252Cf source. The yields of fission fragment
and surviving alpha tracks were measured as a function of annealing time and temperature, as was the
variation of fission track diameter with annealing time. The bulk and track etch rates were measured
using alpha and fission fragment track diameters and the bulk etch rate was also measured by the weight
loss method. The activation energy of annealing was determined using two different models based on the
experimental results. This paper presents novel information showing that the annealed CR-39 detectors
were demonstrated to be highly sensitive to the fission fragments, but not to alpha particles
