Detection of energetic light charged particles by solid state nuclear track detectors

Experiments have been carried out to detect ₂ ³He particles and : rotons having energies up to 10 MeV/nucleon by using Kodak CA80-15, cellulose nitrate plastic track detector. Various etching conditions were tried in order to develop tracks for whole of the energy range considered. Detailed analysis seems to indicate that at high energies, the tracks are mainly produced by “secondaries” (elastically scattered nuclei of C, N, O and H, and other reaction products) while in the low energy region, the slowed down “primaries” play the dominant role. The prolonged etching factors of these detectors for different types of tracks have also been obtained and used to derive their average etchable ranges in the materials concerned.