Measuring the Beam Density of Accelerated 12C Ions Using Computer Analysis of Microscopic Photographic Images of Etched CR-39 Plastic Surfaces

The numbers of detected ions and the beam density dispersions at different depths of plate locations that also cover the Bragg peak region were determined by automatically searching for etched micropores in photographs of surfaces of CR-39 plastic plates exposed to 12 C ions with an energy of 216 MeV/amu in a chamber for radiobiological investigations at the TWAC–ITEP accelerator–accumulator facility. A computer method for seeking etched micropores along latent ion tracks in an exposed plastic is described. Frequency distributions of detected ions over microscopic areas of each surface for eight plates have been obtained and compared using a Gaussian function.