1Department of Physics, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology Longowal Distt. Sangrur, Punjab-148106, India
2School of Physical Sciences, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (A Central University), Rae Bareli Road Vidya Vihar, Lucknow-226025, India
We study the effect of 120 MeV Ni11+ ions beam irradiations at various fluence ranging from 3x1010 to 3x1012 ions/cm2 on the optical, chemical, and structural properties of poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) polymer films. Irradiation on polymeric materials generally leads to a formation of free radicals and ions, with secondary effects such as crosslinking as well as chain scission. To confirm these effects various characterization techniques have been explored viz. UV-Vis, Xray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier Transforms Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Substantial decrease in optical band gap is observed with the increase of the ion fluence. In the FTIR spectra nearly all bands were decreases due the degradation of the molecular structure after irradiation. XRD measurements show the decrease of the main XRD peak intensity, reflects the loss of crystallinity after irradiation. Moreover, crystallinity and crystallite size changes with increasing fluence. The results will be discussed on the basis of ion beam induced modifications.
PET, Heavy ion irradiation, UV-Vis, XRD, FTIR
