Chemical Etching of Charged-Particle Tracks in Solids

Abstract

When a heavy charged particle such as a fission fragment traverses certain materials it leaves a trail of radiation damage which shows up as a track when a sample is viewed by transmission electron microscopy. If a sample of a silicate mineral containing such tracks is immersed in a suitable reagent such as hydrofluoric acid it has been found that the tracks are very selectively attacked. Fine hollow channels are formed along the particle paths while the rest of the material is untouched. A study of this effect in various silicate minerals is reported as a function of etching reagent, etching temperature, and etching time. The minimum width of the etched channels is considerably less than the apparent widths of the tracks prior to etching. It is concluded that the track images result in large part from elastic strains surrounding a damaged core. The etching effect also serves to ``develop'' and ``fix'' particle tracks and hence increases the usefulness of silicate minerals as particle detectors.