Ion-Energy Dependency in Proton Irradiation Induced Chemical Processes of Poly(dimethylsiloxane)

Abstract

In this paper, we present a study of chemical changes in poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) induced by proton irradiation of various energy and fluence. It has been found that the forming products vary as the energy of the proton changes, which means that the energy of the incident ions can influence the chemical mechanism. This is probably caused by the variations in the ion–molecule interactions, that is, the change of probability of ionization and excitation of the molecules. We propose reaction mechanisms for the processes taking place in PDMS by different energy proton irradiation. This unique effect may be used for various purposes, such as to create advanced materials with buried ion-induced modifications or to understand better the heavy ion irradiation induced reactions which have crucial importance for example in proton therapy. The chemical changes created in PDMS were characterized by universal attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy (UATR-FTIR).