Conductivity of aged non-overlapping and overlapping tracks in ion irradiated polyimide

Non-overlapping as well as overlapping tracks of energetic ions have been introduced into polyimide foils. After aging their conductivity was measured. This — to our knowledge — first systematic study shows that conductivity does not only result from multiple track overlapping, but can be found already in single ion tracks. This conductivity is shown to be primarily a consequence of electronic energy transfer. The conductivity of single ion tracks is higher than that of typical insulators, but still orders of magnitude lower than that of typical semiconductors. The conductivity is independent of the applied electric field strength until at excessive voltages the electric current increases nonlinearly up to complete breakthrough. The total conductivity of an irradiated polyimide foil increases proportionally with ion fluence for large ion track spacings, and approaches saturation when the electronically active track regimes begin to overlap. Above some thousand times track overlapping however, new chemical and structural changes in the irradiated material lead to another strong increase in conductivity.