Transmission of Light through Recoiled Proton Tracks in Polycarbonate

Abstract

Effect of light transmission through particle tracks due to scattering may be useful for softening the light to prevent glare in room lighting and in photography. This research aimed to investigate the effect of track density and track size of recoiled proton tracks registered in polycarbonate (PC) sheet on transmission of light. Locally-available PC plastic sheets for sunshade were irradiated with neutrons to produce latent recoiled proton tracks from (n, p) reaction. The latent tracks were then etched in a PEW solution which composed of 15% KOH, 40% ethanol and 45% water. The recoiled proton tracks were observed under an optical microscope and characterized by using the ImageJ program to obtain the average track density and size. Light and infrared transmission were finally tested using an energy transmission meter-SD 2400. In this study, four proton track-etch PC plastic sheets were prepared at 3 and 7 day irradiation times and different etching times from 15 to 60 minutes. The results showed that the prepared track-etch PC sheets could reduce intensity of visible light and infrared by approximately 4.7-15% and 1-12% in comparison with the untreated polycarbonate, respectively. The degree of reduction increased with increasing of track density. It could be concluded that the recoiled proton track-etched in PC sheets with different track densities lead to variation of transmission of visible light and IR by scattering with proton tracks.