Influence of UV-Irradiation on Latent Tracks in Polyethylene Terephthalate Films

Abstract

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films in thickness of 12 𝜇m are irradiated by Xe and Au ions at the energies of 9.5 and 11.4 MeV/u and with the ion fluence from 5 × 10 9 cm −2 to 1 × 10 11 cm −2 . After irradiation, ultra-violet lights are used to illuminate the samples with latent tracks at the wavelength of 365 nm with flux density of 4.2 mW/cm −2 . UV-irradiation effects on tracked PET are investigated by the UV-vis spectrum and positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS). It is found that carbonaceous clusters in PET films are generated by ion irradiation and decomposed with UV illumination by calculating the optical energy band gap 𝐸g in the UV-vis spectrum. The free volumes behave differently in track and bulk after UV illumination. In our experiment, the PALS results show an increase in radius and density of free volume in tracked PET films after UV treatment, which indicates an expansion in radius of latent tracks.

Fabrication and application of nanoporous polymer ion-track membranes

“…SAXS measurement results suggest that a low-mass density core with a diameter of approximately 1 nm exists in such nanopores. PALS experimental results suggest that tracked polymer membranes contain cavities with a subnanometer diameter [12,152]. Furthermore, transport experiments with series of different-sized molecules set the range of channel size [11].…”

Highly Efficient Power Conversion from Salinity Gradients with Ion-Selective Polymeric Nanopores

“…Compared with PET, polyimide (PI) has more abundant aromatic rings, hence it is more susceptive to ion irradiation damage while less sensitive to UV light than PET. [6,8] Thus, we speculate that nanopores could form in the irradiated PI membrane even without UV illumination, and these nanopores could also show selective ionic transport as those in PET membranes.…”