OPTIMIZATION OF ELECTROCHEMICAL TRACK ETCHING FOR ALPHA-PARTICLE SPECTROMETRY

In this work, the technique of chemical (CE) and electrochemical etchi ng (ECE) in applied for energy discrimination of alpha particles. For each alpha energy, a given layer of the irradiated detector surface ha s to be removed chemically before revealing the alpha tracks electroch emically. The thickness of the layer removal is studied as a function of registration efficiency for different alpha energies in the range b etween 0.7-5.0 Mev. The energy resolution of this technique was also s tudied and it was found that the resolution is getting better at the h igher energy regions.