Abstract
Makrofol Polycarbonate (PC) is a polymeric solid-state nuclear track detector (SSNTD) by which various applications can be used in several dosimetric and industrial fields. In this work, nano-sized palladium Pd was prepared and mixed with PC (5 wt.%) to produce nanocomposite films. Samples from the Pd/PC nanocomposite films have been irradiated with gamma doses 20-300 kGy. The modification induced in the optical properties and structure of the Pd/PC nanocomposite samples due to gamma irradiation has been investigated. The increase of Urbach energy, accompanied by a decrease in energy band gap, with the gamma dose indicated that the gamma irradiation up to 300 Gy increases the intermolecular interaction of PC chains and Pd leading to an increase in the disorder in the naocomposite samples. It is well known that the nano-palladium is effective in stabilizing the PC, resulting in the enhancement in both refractive index and intrinsic viscosity with the gamma dose. This leads to a more compact structure of PC due to crosslinking. Additionally, the color sensitivity for the non-irradiated Pd/PC nanocomposite sample showed a significant behavior toward gamma radiation. The color intensity ΔE is the difference in the color between non-irradiated samples and the samples irradiated with various gamma doses. ΔE is increased by increasing the dose till 300 kGy, accompanied by an increase in the yellow color component. Finally, FTIR spectroscopy was performed on the non-irradiated and irradiated samples to correlate the induced changes in Pd/PC nanocomposite with the changes in the function groups.