ON THE REPRODUCIBILITY OF SSNTD TRACK COUNTING EFFICIENCY

In this work, the influence of track density and chemical etching on t he reproducibility of the track counting efficiency, epsilon(0), in so lid state nuclear track detectors (SSNTDs) is studied. This was perfor med by means of the analysis of CR-39 sheets that were attached to a t hin film of natural uranium. Maintaining the chemical etching paramete rs constant and varying the exposition time, epsilon(0) is observed to be constant for track densities varying between values approximately equal to the track background and those corresponding to the track: ov erlapping limit, where track counting becomes difficult (similar to 10 (5) cm(-2) at our conditions). Otherwise, keeping constant the exposit ion time and varying the etching temperature, a variation in Eg is fou nd if a usual track counting criterion is employed. However, such a va riation vanishes statistically when a more rigorous criterion is adopt ed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.