In many dielectrics, swift heavy ions of MeV-GeV energy produce tracks of a few nm in diameter. The track morphology depends on energy loss (dE/dx), particularly the formation of a continuous damage trail requires a critical (dE/dx)c. Below this threshold, chemical etching of discontinuous tracks exhibits inhomogeneous pore sizes and the track etching efficiency drops below unity. In the recent...

A fast ion can electronically excite a solid producing a track of damage, a process initially used to detect energetic particles but now used to alter materials. From the seminal paper by Fleischer et al. [Phys. Rev. 156, 353 (1967)] to the present, "Coulomb explosion" and thermal spike models have been often treated as competing models for describing ion track effects. Here molecular dynamics ...

The aim of this work is to investigate the feasibility of ion beam analysis techniques for monitoring swift heavy ion track formation. First, the use of the in situ Rutherford backscattering spectrometry in channeling mode to observe damage build-up in quartz SiO₂ after MeV heavy ion irradiation is demonstrated. Second, new results of the in situ grazing incidence time-of-flight elastic r...

The TRIUMF ARIEL project plans to build a 50 MeV electron linac at 10 mA to produce radioactive ion beams through photo-fission. Beam dynamics studies of the accelerator are on-going. The TRACK code originally written to simulate proton and heavy ion linacs has been used in e-linac modelling studies. This paper will summarize the TRACK simulation studies and the simulation results will be compa...

Proton exchange membranes (PEMs) for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) have recently been developed by our original techniques of the γ-ray or electron-beam crosslinking and graft polymerization. Our additional main focus is the use of cylindrical damage in polymers produced by bombardment of high-energy ions, that is called a latent track. We are taking the approach using this ion track t...

Abstract The existing and future accelerator facilities at GSI FAIR offer unique opportunities for interdisciplinary research, especially material science nanotechnology. On their way through polymers, swift heavy ions with GeV energy deposit enormous densities along trajectory, generating long nanoscopic damage trails known as ion tracks. Ion-track technology utilizes the small track size (few...

The production of the track-etched membranes is well known in membrane science. Latent ion tracks are the result of the passage of swift ions through solid matter, they can be etched selectively in many materials. As a result, conical, cylindrical or other shape channels can be obtained. The increasing interest in polymer track-etched membranes with nano-channels is connected with the developme...

Studies of the structure of particle tracks have led to models of track effects based on radial dose and radiobiological target theory that have been very successful in describing and predicting track effects in physical, chemical, and biological systems. For describing mammalian cellular inactivation two inactivation modes are required, called gamma-kill and ion-kill, the first due to synergis...