Light scattering from an assembly of tracks in a PADC film

A computer program was developed to calculate the light scattered from an assembly of alpha particle tracks in a PADC film. The tracks were randomly seeded on the film to simulate the irradiation by alpha particles emitted by the naturally occurring radon gas and its short-lived progeny. The ray-tracing method was applied to simulate light propagation through the tracks. The angular distribution of scattered light showed a strong maximum between 10° and 20°. The distribution of the scattered light was found to be independent of the equilibrium factor between radon and its progeny. The total amount of scattering increased linearly with the track density and quadratically with the removed layer during chemical etching of the irradiated PADC film.