Study of optical band gap, carbonaceous clusters and structuring in CR-39 and PET polymers irradiated by 100 MeV O ions

Commercially purchased CR-39 and PET polymers were irradiated by 100 MeV O⁷⁺ ions of varying fluences, ranging from 1×10¹¹ to 1×10¹³ ions/cm². The effects of swift heavy ions (SHI) on the structural, optical and chemical properties of CR-39 and PET polymers were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-visible spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The XRD patterns of CR-39 show that the intensity of the peak decreases with increasing ion fluence, which indicates that the semicrystalline structure of polymer changes to amorphous with increasing fluences. The XRD patterns of PET show a slight increase in the intensity of the peaks, indicating an increase in the crystallinity. The UV-visible spectra show the shift in the absorbance edge towards the higher wavelength, indicating the change in band gap. Band gap in PET and CR-39 found to be decrease from 3.87 to 2.91 and 5.3-3.5 eV, respectively. The cluster size also shows a variation in the carbon atoms per cluster that varies from 42 to 96 in CR-39 and from 78 to 139 in PET. The FTIR spectra show an overall reduction in intensity of the typical bands, indicating the degradation of polymers after irradiation.