Abstract

Various types of solid state nuclear track detectors (SSNTD) are used in many fields of scientific work. Out of more than 200 different materials chemically and electrochemically etched biphenyl-A-polycarbonate (Makrofol) is one of the materials best suited to alpha particle measurements. Unfortunately many different parameters like particle energy, incident angle, strength and temperature of the etching solutions or the conditions during the electrochemical etching influence the calibration factor for the detector material. For the special application of Makrofol for long-term measurements of the radon concentration in air experimental problems of the calibration were first solved and the calibration factor determined. Then, on the basis of experiments, the calibration factor using a Monte Carlo simulation method was calculated. After different optimisation procedures the difference between the measured calibration factor (22.5 cm-2.kBq-1.m3.d-1) amounts to less than 10%. This conformity is a good reason to carry over the results to other calibration problems concerning Makrofol detectors, such as measurements of 220Rn concentrations in air. Thus, for future work, e.g. measurements of surface contamination by alpha emitters, experimental efforts can be reduced to a minimum.

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