The Energy Response of the Nuclear Track Detector PM-355 For -Particles as Compared With CR-39

In this paper, the energy response of the solid state nuclear track detector PM-355 for -particles within the energy range of 5.5MeV have been studied using an 241Am(1ci) source in irradiating the detectors pieces. It has been found that the threshold energy, which defined as the minimum energy that could be detected, is about 0.3 MeV for PM-355. While the track detector CR-39 responses to the -energy approximately up to 0.2 MeV, when a conventional chemical etching is used. The results also indicates that the etching efficiency and sensitivity of the CR-39 is better than that of PM-355. They showed a maximum values when the incident energy of the -particle is about 1.5MeV, where a maximum energy loss in the detector is taking place.