Experimental study of track density distribution on LR 115 detector and deposition fraction of 218 Po in diffusion chamber

The radial distribution of track density on a solid-state nuclear track detector inside a diffusion chamber is a function of the fraction f of Po decay before deposition. In the present work, procedures are proposed to determine f experimentally by determining the track density distribution on an LR115 detector in a diffusion chamber. First, a relatively tall diffusion chamber, with a height of 8 cm, was chosen. After exposure, the LR115 detector was etched. A transparent template with concentric circles was devised to study the radial distribution of sensitivity using an optical microscope. The distributions according to different values of f were also calculated using Monte Carlo simulations. By minimizing the deviations between these Monte Carlo curves and the experimental data, f was found to be 0.4. r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.