The Physics of Ion Tracks

Ion Tracks in Solids: How Nanopores, Membranes and Nanowires Come About

Ion tracks in a thin polymer film are the basis of a technique for making membranes with uniform pores. This site explains the method step by step, from irradiating the film to the finished membrane. We are an independent educational project, linked to no research institution, and we stick to the phenomenon itself.

Start with the basics

Abstract illustration of ion tracks in a material

Ion Track Technology: What Is It About?

It begins with a very thin film, usually made of a polymer such as polycarbonate or polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The film is bombarded from an accelerator with heavy, high-energy ions. Each ion passes completely through the film and leaves a narrow zone of damaged structure behind. These zones are the ion tracks.

Irradiation alone does not yet make a hole. You cannot see the track with the naked eye, and the film looks just as it did before. Only in the next step does the invisible damage become pores.

From Ion Tracks to Nanopores

In the chemical etching that follows, each track is widened into a pore. The diameter can be set anywhere between a few dozen nanometers and a few micrometers, a range that covers nanopores as well as pores in the micrometer range.

The irradiation dose decides how many pores appear on a given area. That makes it possible to produce membranes with a planned pore density, a feature that distinguishes ion track technology from other methods. The pores are nearly round, run parallel and have a similar diameter. Here such membranes differ from fiber filters, whose pores sit between tangled fibers and vary in shape.

Read the article on etching

Close-up of a thin membrane with a regular pattern of pores

What You Will Find Here

We have spread the content over six subpages. The first describes the basics of the phenomenon, the second how the tracks form in the film, and the third the etching that makes a pore from a track. More articles cover the applications and the nanowires. A glossary puts the terms from the other parts in order.

The order is deliberate. First we explain what happens in the material when an ion passes through, then how an invisible track becomes an opening. Last, we show what the finished structures can be used for. You can read the pages in sequence, or open individual topics directly.

We sell no products here and promise no ready-made solutions. Our aim is to show what ion tracks are, how nanopores come from them, and why membranes made this way have such an orderly structure.

Basics

What an ion track is, which materials work, and why researchers are interested in it.

Formation

Energy loss, threshold, accelerators and range: how an ion becomes a track.

Etching

How chemical etching opens the track into a pore, and which parameters set the pore shape.

Applications

From filtration and sensing to geology and track detectors.

Nanowires

The template method: metal in etched pores yields wires, tubes and cones.

Glossary

Ten central terms explained briefly.

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