A Study of the Thermal Neutron Effects on the Optical Properties of CR-39 Solid State Nuclear Track Detector

This research involves studying the effect of thermal neutron on the optical properties of nuclear track detector (CR-39) exposed to radiation at different time ranges from (1 to 15) day at room temperature. The photo absorption was measured using a spectrometer (UV-1100). The results show that the coefficient of absorption increases by increasing time of neutron flux exposure. It was found that the energy gap values decrease with the increase of exposure radiation time, the results also show that the value of energy gap at direct effect (before and after) radiation is more than its value in the indirect effect, also the numbers of carbon atoms in a cluster were determined from UV-visible spectra of the thermal neutron irradiated samples.