Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 155 (1999) 426±430

www.elsevier.nl/locate/nimb

Registration eciency of some SSNTDs with source area included

H. El-Samman a, M. Mansy b, A. Hussein a,c,*
, M. El-Hawary a, A. El Sersy b

a
Faculty of Science, Department of Physics, Meno®a University, Shibin El-Koom, Egypt
b
National Institute for standards, El-Haram, Giza, Egypt
c
Faculty of Science, Department of Physics, Qatar University, POB 2713, El-Doha, Qatar

Received 16 February 1999; received in revised form 18 May 1999

Abstract

In this work, registration eciency dependence on alpha particle energy and incident angle of some SSNTDs has
been studied where the source area (241 Am thin source) was included in the calculations. Ratio of the number of re-
corded track density rate (q/t) to the incident ¯ux (/) has been determined using LR-115, CN-85 and CR-39 track
detectors etched in the most recommended optimum etching conditions.
It was found that the detector registration eciency is independent on the source-to-detector distance (d) if the ¯ux is
accurately calculated and the point source approximation is worked only for d greater than six times the source di-
ameter when irradiation is performed in air. Results of the present work are discussed within the framework of alpha
particle interaction with track detectors where the geometrical con®guration of the source and detector arrangement is
taken into consideration. Ó 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction be the main goal before its use in the measure-

Nuclear track etching methodology is still being
one of the most widely used techniques in many
applications. Track detectors are successfully used
[1±8] in 222 Rn concentration measurements, de-
termination of U, Th contents in natural samples,
personal neutron dosimeter, etc. They have excel-
lent properties such as high registration eciency,
low background noise and can be used for long
term exposure period without any additional cost.
From the experimental point of view, the deter-
mination of detector registration eciency should
*
Corresponding author.
ments. Detector eciency depends not only on the
detector material used and radiation energy but
also on the geometric arrangement between the
source area and the detector surface. Eciency is
essentially a strong function of the measured ra-
diation-induced e€ect in the detector, i.e. the re-
sultant tracks.
In this study, the determination of the detector
eciency of some SSNTDs is carried out via the
ratio of the number of recorded track density per
unit exposure time (q/t) to the number of the in-
cident alpha particle ¯ux (/). This is performed
using an 241 Am alpha source of known activity (A)
and of circular area with radius Rs . In order
to evaluate /, let us consider a solid angle X

0168-583X/99/$ ± see front matter Ó 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 6 8 - 5 8 3 X ( 9 9 ) 0 0 4 8 5 - 1
 H. El-Samman et al. / Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. B 155 (1999) 426±430 427

subtended by the source parallel to SSNTD of /1 ˆ AX; …2†

circular aperture of radius Rd . X is de®ned as the
ratio of the number of particles per second emitted where A is the activity of the radiation source. In
inside the space con®ned between the source area case of d  Rs and for 1 cm2 detector aperture, /
and detector surface to the total activity of the tends to the usual approach of point source ap-
source. proximation, i.e.
Fig. 1 shows a representation of X in case of a /p ˆ A=4pd 2 : …3†
plane source parallel to a plane detector. One can
®nd an expression for X in terms of an integral Formula for ¯ux calculation [10,11] were also in-
form of Bessel function [9] which leads to the fol- troduced by other investigators and take the fol-
lowing formalism lowing forms
  
x2 3ÿ 2 2

15 x4 ‡ w4 2 2

Xˆ 1ÿ x ‡w ‡ ‡w x A
4 4 8 3 /2 ˆ ln R2s ‡ d 2 ÿ R2d
   4pR2s
38 x6 ‡ w6 3 ÿ
q  
ÿ ‡ w2 x2 w2 x2 ; …1† 2 2 2 2
 2
15 4 2 ‡ …Rs ÿ d ÿ Rd † ‡ 4Rd d
2 2 4d …4†

where w ˆ Rs /d, x ˆ Rd /d and d is the source-to-

detector distance. and
The expected number of alphas that reaches the ( p )
A R2s ‡ d
detector surface per second is then given by /3 ˆ 2 ln ; …5†
pRs d

where symbols are de®ned as before.

In the case of inclined incidence of radiation,
i.e. the plane of the detector makes an angle h with
that of the source. Eq. (2) takes the following form
for the inclined incidence case

Ax2 3 ÿ

/h ˆ 1 ÿ w2 ‡ x2 1 ‡ sin2 h
4 4
 4 
15 w ‡ x4 2
‡ ‡w
8 3
  
2 1 2 2 2 2
‡ x 1 ‡ x ‡ w sin h : …6†
4 3

2. Experimental

2.1. Detectors and etching conditions

Plastic sheets of three di€erent track detectors

Fig. 1. Description of solid angle for disk source and circular
detector.
were used in this study and etched at the most
recommended optimum etching conditions [4,5] of
etching concentration and temperature. They were
CR-39 detector of thickness 250 lm (TASTRAK
supplied by Bristol, UK) etched in 6.25N NaOH at
428 H. El-Samman et al. / Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. B 155 (1999) 426±430

70°C, LR-115 detector (Kodak, France) etched in

2.5N NaOH at 50°C, 60°C. CR-39 detectors were
etched for di€erent etching duration, while LR-115
and CN-85 detector were etched for 1.5 and 6 h,
respectively.

2.2. Irradiation facility

Detectors were exposed to a thin electroplated

241
Am disk alpha source of activity 34.4 kBq and a
surface area of 19.63 mm2 . Irradiation was carried
out in air and in irradiation chamber [8] designed
for such purpose where alpha energy is varied by
varying the pressure inside the chamber. The di-
mensions of the developed track were then mea-
sured under an optical microscope attached to an
eyepiece micrometer with each division equals to
0.22 lm. Background tracks originated in an un- Fig. 2. Variation of ¯ux as a function of source-to-detector
exposed detectors were ®rst measured and subtr- distance.
acted, if it were found, before any track density
evaluation.

3. Results and discussion

Alpha particle ¯ux (/) based on expressions

represented by Eqs. (1)±(5) are calculated at
di€erent values of d and shown in Fig. 2. From in-
spection of this ®gure, it is clear that the variations
of /2 , /3 and /p with d are almost the same; they
shown a rapid decrease with increasing d within the
range from 0.5 cm to about 1.5 cm. Beyond this
region these functions continue to decrease slowly
with d up to 6.0 cm. On the other hand, although /1
varies with d in the same manner as /2 , /3 and /p ,
but the /1 ±d curve lies lower.
For values of d > 4 cm, all /, curves coincide,
i.e. values of alpha ¯uxes calculated from all the
studied approaches (/1 , /2 , /3 and /p ) are almost
the same at each value of d. As a result we may Fig. 3. Variation of registration eciency with alpha energy of
LR-115 detectors etched in 2.5N NaOH at 50°C for di€erent
suggest that the point source approximation (/p ) is
etching duration.
suciently enough to be applied in the region of
d > 4 cm where this approximation works well with
high degree of accuracy. scope. From the inspection of this ®gure, it is clear
The dependence of registration eciency of that, in alpha energy range from 1.5 to about 4.5
LR-115 detector on alpha energy is represented in MeV, the detector eciency register a value of
Fig. 3. Detectors were irradiated in an irradiation about 90% for etching times from 2 to 6 h. Beyond
chamber, etched and counted under the micro- 4.5 MeV, the eciency drops to zero. The data
 H. El-Samman et al. / Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. B 155 (1999) 426±430 429

Fig. 4. Comparison between registration eciency of LR-115 Fig. 5. Comparison of registration eciencies versus alpha
track detectors irradiated in air and in an irradiation chamber. energy for CN-85, LR-115 and CR-39 track detectors, where all
detectors were irradiated in air and etched for a duration of 1.5
h for both LR115 and CN-85 while CR-39 was etched for 5 h.

represented in Fig. 3 provides an energy window

for possible track development in such detector alpha energies. This re¯ects the feasibility of suc-
under study. cessfully using the CR-39 in many dosimetric ap-
A comparison between the registration e- plications.
ciency of LR-115 detector irradiated in air and in Fig. 6 shows the variation of the inclined inci-
the irradiation chamber is given in Fig. 4. It is clear dent ¯ux (as calculated from Eq. (5)) with incident
that irradiation in air increases the registration angle at constant source-to-detector distance (5
eciency of the detector by a factor of about 15% cm) in vacuum. It also shows the variation of track
which re¯ects the importance of oxygen concen-
tration in medium surrounding the detector.
Fig. 5 shows the dependence of registration ef-
®ciency of alpha particle from 1.0 to 5.48 MeV of
LR-l15, CN-85 and CR-39 detectors. It is obvious
from this ®gure that the eciency of LR-115 and
CN-85 detectors is about 80% in the energy range
from 1.0±3.5 MeV and then shows a decrease with
further increase in energy reaching 5% at 5.48 MeV.
On the other hand the eciency of CR-39 varies
with energy in di€erent manners. It slightly in-
creases with energy reaching a value of about 100%
at 2.5 MeV and then behaves almost steadily with
further increase in energy up to about 5.48 MeV.
From the comparison between the eciency
curves displayed in Fig. 5, one can notice that the
CR-39 detector represents the best eciency ap- Fig. 6. Inclined ¯ux and alpha track density as a function of
plicable detector in the entire range of the studied incident angle.
430 H. El-Samman et al. / Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. B 155 (1999) 426±430
Fig. 7. Dependence of registration eciency of LR-115 track
detectors on incident angle at di€erent alpha energies.
density with incident angle. From this ®gure it is
easy to notice that both of ¯ux and track density
show a decrease as the angle-to-beam direction
decreases.
Fig. 7 represents the variation of eciency with
incident angle using LR-115 track detectors. It is
obvious from this ®gure that the inclined regis-
tration eciency has constant value at about 80%
for energies from 1.0 up to 3.5 MeV with angle
from 90° to 40° while at 4.5 MeV, the eciency
decreases from 80% to 20% as the angle varies
from 90° to 30°.
4. Conclusion
Alpha ¯ux of 241 Am disk source was calculated
at normal and inclined incidence using di€erent
theoretical approaches. Absolute registration e-
ciency of di€erent types of track detectors viz.,
CR-39, CN-85 and LR-115 was determined under
di€erent conditions. It was found that both of LR-
l15 and CN-85 have a well de®ned energy window
of registration eciency while CR-39 showed the
same value of eciency (within the experimental
uncertainties) for all studied alpha energies. It was
also found that the registration eciency of LR-
115 track detector exposed in air increases by a
factor of about 15% than those irradiated under
low air pressure.
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