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On the influence of etch pits in the overall dissolution rate of apatite basal sections

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Abstract

Determination of efficiencies for particle detection plays a central role for proper estimation of reaction rates. If chemical etching is employed in the revelation of latent particle tracks in solid-state detectors, dissolution rates and etchable lengths are important factors governing the revelation and observation. In this work, the mask method, where a reference part of the sample is protected during dissolution, was employed to measure step heights in basal sections of apatite etched with a nitric acid, HNO\(_3\), solution at a concentration of 1.1 M and a temperature of 20 °C. We show a drastic increase in the etching velocity as the number of etch pits in the surface augments, in accordance with the dissolution stepwave model, where the outcrop of each etch pit generates a continuous sequence of stepwaves. The number of etch pits was varied by irradiation with neutrons and perpendicularly incident heavy ions. The size dependence of the etch-pit opening with etching duration for ion (200–300 MeV 152Sm and 238U) tracks was also investigated. There is no distinction for the etch pits between the different ions, and the dissolution seems to be governed by the opening velocity when a high number of etch pits are present in the surface. Measurements of the etchable lengths of these ion tracks show an increase in these lengths when samples are not pre-annealed before irradiation. We discuss the implications of these findings for fission-track modelling.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are in debt with Dr. R. Jonckheere for stimulating discussions about the experiments. Grateful acknowledges are given to Mr. A.A.G.V. Zuben and Dr. F. Vallini for their assistance in the photo-resist lithography, to Dr. C. Trautmann and the GSI staff for the ion irradiations and to Dr. P.R.P. Coelho and the IPEN staff for the neutron irradiation. The results presented here are part of a Ph.D. thesis (I.A.) which was financially supported by Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) through projects 141705/2008-6 and 201847/2009-4. Comments and criticisms from two unknown reviewers helped to improve the quality of the original manuscript. This work is dedicated in the memory of Dr. P.J. Iunes.

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  1. Igor Alencar

    Present address: Institut für Geowissenschaften, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Altenhöferallee 1, 60438, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

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  1. Instituto de Física “Gleb Wataghin”, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Rua Sérgio Buarque de Holanda 777, CEP 13083-859, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Igor Alencar, Sandro Guedes, Rosane Palissari & Julio C. Hadler

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  1. Igor Alencar
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Alencar, I., Guedes, S., Palissari, R. et al. On the influence of etch pits in the overall dissolution rate of apatite basal sections. Phys Chem Minerals 42, 629–640 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00269-015-0749-6

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