Revealing the mechanism of damage to the carbonate ester in PADC polymeric nuclear track detector using low-energy electron stimulated desorption

Abstract

We investigate the mechanism of damage to the carbonate ester chemical functions in Poly allyl diglycol carbonate (PADC) induced by low-energy electrons (LEEs) of <50 eV, which are major components of the initial secondary products of ionizing radiation. PADC is the world's most widely used polymeric nuclear track detector (PNTD) for swift ion detection. Using diethylene glycol monoethyl ether acetate as a surrogate for PADC, we have measured for irradiation with low-energy electrons (LEEs) of <50 eV, the electron stimulated desorption (ESD) signal of O⁻ from 3-monolayer thick films of DGMEA by time-of-flight mass spectrometry. We find that for electron irradiation at energies >6–9 eV, the instantaneous ESD yield of O⁻ increases with the cumulative number of incident electrons (i.e., fluence), indicating that the additional O⁻ signal derives from an electron⁻induced DGMEA product. From comparison with ESD measurements from films of acetic acid and acetaldehyde, we identify that the additional desorbed O⁻ signal derives from oxygen atoms originally adjacent to the carbonyl bond in DGMEA. Since LEEs are the predominant secondary particles produced by ionizing radiation, this finding helps to better understand the mechanism of damage to carbonate ester in PADC, which is a key step for latent track formation in PADC.