Polymer film degradation under ion irradiation studied by ion beam induced luminescence (IBIL) and optical analyses

In this work the real time evolution of luminescence properties of ion-irradiated polymer thin films was studied by means of ion beam induced luminescence (IBIL) measurements. The plastic scintillator NE102, a fluorinated polyimide and PMMA were irradiated by H+ (1.85 MeV), He+ (2.2 MeV) and N+ (1.2 MeV). The optical properties after irradiation were analysed with UV-Visible absorption, fluorescence spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), in order to correlate the IBIL measurements to the evolution of the optical and chemical properties of the matrix. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.