An Atomic Force Microscopy Investigation of the Tracks Made byC⁺₁-C⁺₄ Bombardment on CR-39 Detectors

Carbon micro-clusters are accelerated by an HI-13 tandem accelerator. The plastic nuclear track detectors CR-39 are irradiated by C₁-C₄ beams from the HI-13 tandem accelerator and the tracks in CR-39 are studied using an atomic force microscope (AFM). The depths and diameters of C₁-C₄ tracks are measured for the first time in a nanometer scale. An enhancement of energy loss is obtained for carbon cluster related to single carbon ions with the same velocity. The results show that the AFM observation is very useful in the quantitative analysis of clusters in the track detector CR-39.