Swift Heavy Ion Induced Modification of Aliphatic Polymers

In this thesis, the high energy heavy ion induced modification of aliphatic polymers is studied. Two polymer groups, namely polyvinyl polymers (PVF, PVAc, PVA and PMMA) and fluoropolymers (PVDF, ETFE, PFA and FEP) were used in this work. Polyvinyl polymers were investigated since they will be used as insulating materials in the superconducting magnets of the new ion accelerators of the planned International Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at the GSI Helmholtz-Centre of Heavy Ion Research (GSI) in Darmstadt. In order to study ion-beam induced degradation, all polymer foils were irradiated at the GSI linear accelerator UNILAC using several projectiles (U, Au, Sm, Xe) and experimentation sites (beam lines X0 and M3) over a large fluence regime (1×1010 – 5×1012 ions/cm2). Five independent techniques, namely infrared (FT-IR) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, residual gas analysis (RGA), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), and mass loss analysis (ML), were used to analyze the irradiated samples. FT-IR spectroscopy revealed that ion irradiation led to the decrease of characteristic band intensities showing the general degradation of the polymers, with scission of side groups and the main backbone. As a consequence of the structural modification, new bands appeared. UV-Vis transmission analysis showed an absorption edge shift from the ultraviolet region towards the visible region indicating double bond and conjugated double bond formation. On-line massspectrometric residual gas analysis showed the release of small gaseous fragment molecules. TGA analysis gave evidence of a changed thermal stability. With ML analysis, the considerable mass loss was quantified. The results of the five complementary analytical methods show how heavy ion irradiation changes the molecular structure of the polymers. Molecular degradation mechanisms are postulated. The amount of radiation damage is found to be sensitive to the used type of ionic species. While the irradiation of polymers with high energy heavy ions represents a enforced simulation test of the radiation damage in accelerators, they correspond to real situation in space where devices are directly being hit by very high energy heavy ions