3D nuclear track analysis by digital holographic microscopy

A new method, based on Digital Holographic Microscopy (DHM), to visualize and to analyze etched tracks in SSNTD has been developed. The proposed method is based on the possibility of the digital holography to perform whole reconstruction of the recorded wave front, so that phase and intensity distribution at a plane located between the object and recording plane and along the reconstructed image of the object can be determined. In a DHM system, the back focal plane of the lens can be reconstructed so that complex amplitudes of the Fraunhofer diffraction of light distribution across the object can be known. With the knowledge and manipulation of the components of this plane is possible to design different methods of image analysis. In this paper, the DHM method was applied to determine the track parameters in CR-39 detectors, showing that most of studies carried out with Confocal Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy could be also done, with the sufficient exactitude and precision, but in a simpler and more economic way. The developed microholographic method provides a new alternative procedure that overcomes the current techniques at least in technological simplicity.