A COMBINED RAMAN AND XPS STUDY OF THE EFFECTS INDUCED ON GLUTATHIONE BY ION-BEAM IRRADIATION

Low fluence ion irradiation of organic materials causes physical and c hemical modifications that depend on the nature of the pristine materi als and on the beam parameters. The knowledge of the microscopic mecha nisms that induce the macroscopic modifications is able to produce the desired effect by a careful selection of the pristine material and of the beam parameters. Ion beam irradiation of ''biomaterials'' is curr ently the subject of many studies aimed to investigate these materials for both fundamental and applied reasons. Here we present the results of a combined XPS (X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) and Raman study on thin films of glutathione bombarded with 250 keV He ions. The need for having a low molecular mass material arises from our plan to inves tigate the ion beam effects by means of techniques that follow the che mical evolution of the sample under ion bombardment such as mass spect rometry, photoelectron spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. In this re spect a low molecular weight target, in principle, is easier to unders tand than one at high molecular mass.